Daily News Begin Again Brooklyn Eric Gonzalez
How This 'Progressive Prosecutor' Balances Politics and Public Condom
As his peers around the state face vehement criticism, Eric Gonzalez, the Brooklyn district chaser, is navigating a narrow path so far.
On the kickoff Dominicus in February, Eric Gonzalez, Brooklyn's commune chaser, sat in the front row at Antioch Baptist Church in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood. The visit was allegorical of Mr. Gonzalez's arroyo to criminal justice: Alongside dozens of parishioners, he and several local officials and law leaders listened to music, prayer and a biblical account of healing by faith and touch.
When the service was over, Mr. Gonzalez and a elevation police commander stepped exterior and into a crime scene. Merely down the street, at around 2 a.m. that 24-hour interval, an 18-year-old homo had been fatally shot in his machine — Brooklyn'south 11th homicide of the year.
A few short hours and a few hundred feet autonomously, the two episodes illustrated the narrow path that Mr. Gonzalez must walk. Starting time elected in 2017, he pledged to bring a mod, progressive arroyo — a prosecutor'south healing touch on — to a criminal justice organisation that has long been seen as a source of inequity. Simply as he begins his second term, stubborn increases in shootings, gang violence and other crimes have focused the city's attention on public condom and complicated Mr. Gonzalez'southward ability to fulfill that pledge.
Some New Yorkers — well-nigh notably, Mayor Eric Adams — have blamed the increases in everything from shoplifting to shootings on leniency in prosecuting lower-level crimes. Calls for a tough-on-criminal offence arroyo have stitch against efforts to reduce the city's jail population and rectify decades of racially biased policing.
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Across the land, many of Mr. Gonzalez'southward peers in what has come to exist known as the "progressive prosecutor" movement — including Alvin Bragg, Manhattan's newly elected district attorney — have struggled to balance the competing demands. Although information technology is unclear what is causing the spike in shootings, their critics have focused on what they encounter every bit heightened scrutiny of the police force, an emphasis on social services over prosecution and the easing of bail and sentencing laws.
Faced with a spate of grisly crimes, rise public anxiety, relentless criticism from bourgeois commentators and open rejection by police force unions, Mr. Bragg has spent his first weeks in the job clarifying and, in some cases, reversing some of his more than ambitious proposals.
Mr. Gonzalez has largely escaped such scrutiny, despite pursuing similar policies for years.
How he navigates these at times conflicting priorities — reducing crime while making the justice arrangement more just; responding to residents' concerns without filling jails; serving victims while addressing the roots of criminal behavior — could exist primal in shaping the time to come of the city'due south criminal justice organisation.
"I know what works, and my strategy has not shifted," Mr. Gonzalez said in a recent interview. "It's my job to intendance about quality of life. What I am responsible for is prophylactic — I am also a steward of public trust in our justice organization."
He added: "Those are all things progressives accept not gotten right in their messaging."
According to current and erstwhile colleagues, nonprofit leaders, academics, Mr. Gonzalez's peers and other police-enforcement officials, his strategy boils down to this: Listen to the customs. Work with the police. Do not speak in absolutes or brand promises y'all cannot keep. Work quietly and steadily, making alter example by case.
A Career in Brooklyn
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Mr. Gonzalez, 53, grew upward in the Due east New York and Williamsburg neighborhoods, at a time when violence and drugs plagued Brooklyn.
He graduated from John Dewey Loftier Schoolhouse in Coney Island, then went to Cornell Academy and the University of Michigan Law School. In 1995, he started working at the Brooklyn district attorney'southward function, rose through the ranks as a prosecutor, and never left. He lives with his wife and 3 sons in Williamsburg, less than a mile from where he grew up.
He became interim district attorney in belatedly 2016, after his predecessor, Ken Thompson, died of cancer.
When he was elected to a total term the next twelvemonth, Mr. Gonzalez pledged to lead "the about progressive D.A.'s role in the country," promoting public safety and treating Brooklyn'south minority residents fairly.
Mr. Gonzalez and his directorate put together a vision for the office, which was discussed widely within the office and shared with residents and the police. Early release from prison would be the default position in most parole proceedings; intervention efforts would be employed to drive downwardly gang crime; prosecutors would be encouraged to resolve cases without jail time. The program as well chosen for more vigorous prosecution of certain sex activity crimes — such every bit and then-called acquaintance rape — and the add-on of a detest crimes unit.
When the program, "Justice 2020," came out, information technology was "a non-story, because he had already sold it and begun to implement it," said Tali Farhadian Weinstein, who served as full general counsel under Mr. Gonzalez, and ran unsuccessfully confronting Mr. Bragg concluding year. She and several other quondam colleagues said the repose, incremental rollout was typical of his style. "Non because y'all're trying to hide the ball, merely because that's sometimes the all-time style for public safety," she said.
In his beginning total term, Mr. Gonzalez continued the piece of work he began every bit acting district chaser: He dismissed tens of thousands of summonses for low-level offenses, and almost stopped prosecuting marijuana possession. He expanded a mentorship programme that immune some young men arrested with a gun for the showtime time to avert prison, and he reached plea deals with immigrant defendants that allowed them to avert displacement.
Yung-Mi Lee, the legal director of the criminal defence force practice at Brooklyn Defender Services, said an important deviation between Mr. Gonzalez and Mr. Bragg was that Mr. Gonzalez did not come up out of the gates with a sweeping ready of changes.
Instead, Ms. Lee said, he had been "quietly implementing his policies, in terms of what kinds of cases should be prosecuted, which kinds of cases he has been declining to prosecute" — with some getting "a very hard-line approach."
"It's all about prosecutorial discretion," she said.
When residents of Bay Ridge were upset about a grouping of men who oftentimes lingered on a corner nigh a schoolhouse, drinking and urinating, Mr. Gonzalez said, his office intervened. Instead of seeking charges, the office contacted a charity service, and got a couple of the men into shelters.
"Eric Gonzalez, rhetorically, is very progressive," said Carl Hamad-Lipscombe, the executive director of the Envision Freedom Fund, a Brooklyn nonprofit and bail fund that pushes for alternatives to pretrial detention.
"What plays out in court is often very unlike," Mr. Hamad-Lipscombe said, with prosecutors from Mr. Gonzalez's office seeking bail in cases that might not call for it.
Working With the Law
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Ane factor that contributes to Mr. Gonzalez's power to walk the line between progressive priorities and community calls to tackle public rubber concerns more aggressively is his diplomatic relationship with the Police Department, which he cultivated over a quarter century every bit a land prosecutor.
"They have e'er been given a voice at the table," Mr. Gonzalez said of the police.
In 2017, the city's largest police union endorsed Mr. Gonzalez in the Autonomous primary, maxim he "demonstrated a clear commitment to justice and fairness, likewise as an understanding of the hard and unique nature of a police officeholder'south duties."
Notwithstanding, Mr. Gonzalez has occasionally faced criticism from the police. In 2019, when his office released a list of officers whose credibility had been undermined through discredited testimony or workplace infractions, the law union that one time endorsed him said he had "abased his prosecutorial part," siding with "criminals, not law-breaking victims."
The department also objected strongly to his arroyo to gun possession cases. The police started to ship gun cases to federal prosecutors instead; one of Mr. Gonzalez'due south onetime top aides recalled that he had to work hard "to rebuild those bridges."
Mr. Gonzalez's frail approach to working with the constabulary is rooted, observers said, in a fundamental agreement of New York: When it comes to police and guild, much of the city can be somewhat conservative. In last year's Democratic mayoral primary, Mr. Adams — a former police officer who ran on a tough-on-crime platform — carried many of the districts hitting hardest by violent criminal offense.
"I constantly hear people say they want more cops — they but desire their cops to behave differently," said Richard Aborn, the president of the Citizens Crime Commission of New York, a nonprofit group that works closely with law enforcement and community organizations.
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By the stop of 2020, Brooklyn had tallied 175 murders and 652 shootings, compared with well-nigh 100 murders and 290 shootings the year before. Aggravated assaults too increased, as did burglaries and car thefts.
Brooklyn reported some improvement final year: a 15 percent decline in murders and 20 percent fewer shootings. Robbery, rape and burglary also dropped. Mr. Gonzalez'southward role worked with the police on 4 major gang takedowns.
Just at that place is more work to exist washed.
"We became the safest big city in America," Mr. Aborn said. "When y'all've had 15 years of those levels of prophylactic, and all of a sudden random shootings and murders start to creep upwards — people existence shot, people being pushed on the subway, bodegas broken into with guns, that is going to shake an already shaken city."
Mr. Gonzalez has argued that this is not a problem the urban center can abort its fashion out of. Many of the concerns he hears, he said, are not about tearing crime or gangs or gun violence, merely nigh residents' perceptions of an erosion of public prophylactic.
"You have to have your ear to the ground, considering information technology actually goes from community to community," Mr. Gonzalez said.
His part recently fielded a call from a chain drugstore in the Brownsville neighborhood that was existence targeted regularly past several shoplifters who would get fierce when confronted.
"There are neighborhoods with 1 chemist's," Mr. Gonzalez said. If that co-operative shuts downward, "All of a sudden, that community doesn't accept a 24-hour pharmacy."
A woman in Mr. Gonzalez'southward office who handles cases involving repeat offenders talked to the local precinct and set up a pilot plan. Detectives in unmarked cars stationed outside the store arrested the shoplifters but, rather than jail or prosecute them, the district attorney's function spoke with them almost what was behind the thefts: Of the half-dozen who agreed to participate in the pilot programme, two reported having mental wellness problems, three were homeless and all reported substance abuse problems.
The 6 were referred to service providers, and Mr. Gonzalez'due south office is tracking their progress.
"To me, being progressive is not simply most not prosecuting cases," Mr. Gonzalez said. "Information technology's about using the resources to protect communities."
Nicole Hong contributed reporting.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/26/nyregion/eric-gonzalez-brooklyn-politics.html