RICHMOND, Va. (WTVR)--There’s no question that Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey pulled out all the stops while checking up on the probation of singer and felon Chris Brown and the community service he was supposed to perform here, close to his hometown.
Why did Lacey push so hard?
Jackie Lacey is the first woman and the first African-American to head up the largest prosecutorial office in the land, with a staff of 2,000 plus, nearly half of them attorneys.
She worked her way up the ladder there, successfully trying high-profile cases, including LA’s first race-based hate crime murder starring Nazi bikers.
Lacey is brand new to the top spot, surprisingly winning last November, which is when the Chris Brown community service investigation got serious because of glaring discrepancies in reports by the Richmond Police Department about Chris Brown’s community service.
“We asked the court for an accounting” and didn’t get it, said Sandi Gibbons, public information officer for the L.A. County District Attorney’s Office. “So we went and did it ourselves.”
Lacey’s motion to make Chris Brown redo his 180 days of community service is more detailed than a murder indictment. It noted that a team of investigators traveled to Virginia to check up on the RPD documentation.
Bet that cost a pretty penny.
It’s sort of like sending the FBI to crack down on parking violators.
I talked with longtime probation and parole folks here, and they’ve never seen this kind of exhaustive investigation into a community service case.
Why so heavy?
If Lacey was looking to make a quick splash in her new post, it certainly worked. This fiasco is national news. And we’re talking about her 2,600 miles away.
And we’re also talking about Los Angles, a gigantic bowl of humanity, with lots of superstars, more than a few of them behaving badly.
Does this signal that Lacey isn’t going to suffer foolish stars, that her office is going to make sure actors, musicians and other superstars will get the same dose of justice as every day folks?
“All cases aren’t the same,” said Sandi Gibbons, the D.A.’s spokeswoman. “Each case is unique into itself. But we believe justice should be even-handed.”
So what did Chris Brown learn after feloniously beating the daylights out of his girlfriend?
He didn’t go to jail. It looks like he served community service light. He got his girlfriend back.
Men who beat women shouldn’t get special treatment, and from all indications, Chris Brown got just that.
It’s sickening that our police chief, our police department and our city got tangled up with a loser like that.
That’s my take, please leave yours here on WTVR.com
