A crowd of protestors picketed in front of the Orange County Courthouse Tuesday afternoon, accusing District Attorney Tony Rackackaus of aggressively pursuing a gang injunction in Santa Ana while going soft on police shootings and political corruption.
By 3:30 p.m. at least three dozen protestors were lined up along the front of the Central Justice Center in Santa Ana, holding hand–made signs with slogans like “Who Prosecutes the OCDA?” and “OC DA: You Don’t Represent Us.”
The activists, along with family members of people killed in officer-involved shootings, also held a mock funeral procession, carrying a black cardboard coffin along the sidewalk in front of the courthouse. The names of those killed were written on the coffin.
Others said they were there to voice their opposition to attempts by the DA to enforce a gang injunction in the Townsend neighborhood.
“[The District Attorney’s Office] is the center of corruption — it all comes back to the OCDA. And who polices them?” said Gaby Hernandez with the group Chicanos Unidos, which has opposed the Townsend Street Gang injunction.
The office has been under scrutiny in recent weeks after a judge ruled that prosecutors in the case of Seal Beach mass-murderer Scott Evan Dekraai engaged in misconduct by hiding from defense attorneys evidence gleaned from a jailhouse informants network.
The activists called on State Attorney General Kamala Harris to investigate Racauckas and for the county Board of Supervisors to “pull funding from corrupt DAs.”
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