PERSON OF THE YEAR
GONZALEZ
SM: You served as acting
district attorney for years
before being elected to District
Attorney. Was there a
difference in how you approached
the job in the two
roles?
EG: My fi rst responsibility
as the acting district attorney
was to ensure that the work
of the offi ce continued in the
face of the tragic loss we’d all
suffered. And we did that and
more: 2017 was a successful
year, with the biggest gun-traffi
cking take down in Brooklyn’s
history, the dismantling
of major narcotics distribution
rings, and a multi-million
healthcare fraud case.
There were also urgent reforms
that I felt needed to be
implemented without delay.
I changed my offi ce’s misdemeanor
bail policy to make
release rather than bail our
default position. Additionally,
I enacted a fi rst-of-its kind immigration
policy aimed at protecting
our non-citizen neighbors
from harsh consequences
like deportation, and worked
with the city and other district
attorneys to dismiss hundreds
of thousands of old summons
warrants.
What I did not do in the
acting capacity was make
wholesale changes in how the
offi ce operated or in its executive
staff. I knew that these
changes should only be done
after receiving a mandate
from the public, and I have
been focusing on making these
changes over the past year. We
are going to make signifi cant
changes in our policies under
my Justice 2020 plan, and have
had a very impressive group
of leaders joining the offi ce or
getting promoted. New executives
include accomplished
members of academia, the
New York Police Department,
the federal justice system, and
even the American Civil Liberties
Union and the defense
bar. They’ve all added new perspectives
and ideas that help
me drive my reform agenda.
SM: What was the biggest
challenge you faced in
your fi rst year elected to the
offi ce?
EG: I would say the biggest
challenge was implementing
the very ambitious reforms I
am committed to, while also
handling day-to-day operations
and decisions in a very
busy offi ce. Sometimes events
take over. For instance, after
the arrest video of Jazmine
Headley in the offi ce of a city
agency recently went viral ,
I spent a lot of time and resources
on a quick investigation
of the disturbing incident,
which resulted in my
dismissal of the charges, and
my effort to secure the young
mother’s release from Rikers.
It was the right thing to do.
SM: What would you say
was your greatest achievement
made in your fi rst
year elected to the offi ce?
EG: I would prefer to assess
myself after a full term
in offi ce, because many of the
initiatives we are undertaking
have a long arc. But my
fi rst responsibility as district
attorney is to keep Brooklyn
safe, and I’m grateful that we
had another successful year
in that regard in 2018. Homicides
declined to another record
low , dipping below 100 for
the fi rst time in recorded history.
Major crime categories
are down by nearly two percent,
and there was particular
improvement in safety at
Nycha public-housing properties.
And we are now sending
far fewer people to Rikers Island
when they commit misdemeanors:
that number is
down 43 percent compared to
2017, continuing a trend that
started after I put the new bail
policy in place in the spring of
2017.
I am also proud of the progress
we made in the area of
marijuana possession prosecutions,
which we reduced
by 98 percent last year, when
we also dismissed more than
4,500 open summons and misdemeanor
warrants for this offense
and started erasing past
convictions. Mine was the fi rst
district attorney’s offi ce in the
state to do that .
SM: What would you say
is your number-one goal for
the offi ce going into 2019?
EG: Early in the year, I plan
to unveil my Justice 2020 action
plan, which is the result of
months of discussions among
a committee of more than 70
experts, reformers, academics,
law-enforcement personnel
and formerly incarcerated
individuals that I put together
at the start of 2018. They came
up with a set of recommendations
that will truly transform
my offi ce, and can serve as
an example to similar offi ces
across the country.
The changes include making
jail the last resort in many
cases, having community
members be real partners in
deciding how to approach certain
crimes and punishments,
refocusing our resources on
the most-dangerous individuals,
and more. This is an ambitious
initiative, but we are
already well into the process
of implementing it internally,
and I am very excited to share
what we are doing with the
public. My top goal — besides
ensuring public safety — is
to make progress towards advancing
COURIER L 42 IFE, JAN. 18–24, 2019 M B G
the Justice 2020 plan,
in order to build a truly progressive
and modern prosecutor’s
offi ce that the people of
Brooklyn can be proud of.
SM: The state is poised to
enact sweeping marijuanareform
laws in 2019, in no
small part thanks to progressive
policies you and
Thompson instituted and
practice here in Brooklyn.
What do you say to those
who still doubt those policies
and their necessity?
EG: I would encourage
them to do what I did, and
take a look at the numbers. We
know that all races and economic
classes use marijuana
at approximately the same
rate, yet about 90 percent of
those who have been arrested
for doing so in New York are
Black or Latino, many of them
young men. That is simply unfair.
This intractable racial
disparity was a major reason
for my decision last year to
expand our declination policy
from simple possession to
also include cases of smoking
in public — which led to a 98-
percent drop in prosecutions.
We also know there is no correlation
between marijuana
criminalization and public
safety, as evidenced by the fact
that safety in the city has continued
to improve while marijuana
arrests and prosecutions
sharply declined.
With those statistics in
mind, the question becomes:
Should we continue enforcing
the same failed policies,
and spending resources on
criminalizing behavior that
is now legal in 10 states? I believe
the answer is no. These
arrests don’t keep us safe, but
they do foster mistrust between
communities and law
enforcement, and they introduce
many young people to the
criminal-justice system. And I
believe any legalization plan
must take the extra step to also
erase past convictions. These
convictions can stand in the
way of a getting a job, applying
for housing, and receiving education
grants — and they can
be especially dangerous for
immigrants. It would simply
be unjust for people to be burdened
by a conviction for conduct
we no longer prosecute.
SM: Tell us how you,
as District Attorney, have
Continued from page 41
‘PERSON’ OF INTEREST: Schneps Media is proud to name District Attorney Eric Gonzalez as its Brooklyn
Person of the Year. Photo by Caroline Ourso
Continued on page 44