George Gascón talks about the Sherman Oaks burglary and his stance on dealing with crime – NBC Los Angeles

Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón spoke about the arrest and quick release of a group of men arrested in connection with the burglary of a Sherman Oaks home earlier this week.

Three men were arrested after being accused of committing a robbery at a home at 15200 Greenleaf Street on Monday night. They were taken into custody hours later and identified as:

• Juan Carlos Gonzalez, 21,
• Isaiah Rankins, 22,
• Dion Hill, 24 years old.

According to Gascón, at least two of the men posted bail shortly after their arrest.

“You were arrested and you immediately posted bail,” the district attorney said. “That's just the way the system works and that's one of the reasons why I believe we should eliminate bail and do a risk-based assessment. If you have previous cases pending against you, if you have, you know, a history of risk, if you pose a danger to our community, you should not be released.”

The suspects had previous burglaries and were on probation for possession of weapons.

Monday night's break-in reignited debate over crime in the county, with critics of Gascón accusing his office of taking a “soft” approach to crime fighting.

“First of all, we're working really hard with the police to make sure people are held accountable,” Gascón said. “We're going to send people to jail, we're going to prosecute them, we're going to do everything we can to get that part done.”

The district attorney presented a chart showing that his office files charges in 73 percent of burglary cases brought by police, a figure that has generally remained the same for the past eight years, including the five years before Gascón took office.

NBC4's conversation with Gascón came days after the Los Angeles Police Department issued an alert to West Los Angeles neighborhoods due to an increase in home burglaries in certain areas.