Last Friday I wrote about a hit and run case that took place last year in LA County. A teen driver who had stolen a car drove straight into a woman who was out pushing her 8-month-old infant in a stroller. Here’s a CBS Los Angeles clip about the story which includes surveillance video of the hit and run.

As mentioned in that story, the DA’s office put out a statement saying that 5 months at a camp for juveniles was a just outcome in this case. The statement cited the agreement of the LA County Sheriff’s office with the charges: “The Sheriff’s Department agreed with the felony charges that were filed.” But the LA County Sheriff was quick to deny that.

Today, the @ladaoffice released a statement claiming that @LASDHQ was ok with the lightweight sentencing in this brutal Venice hit and run. We were never consulted as we were not the Investigating agency. @LASDHQ Investigators would never be ok with this sentencing #VictimsMatter https://t.co/oovp8DwDDO

— Alex Villanueva (@LACoSheriff) June 4, 2022

In response to that, the DA’s office walked back the claim and admitted the Sheriff’s office had no involvement in the case.

After Los Angeles Sheriff Alex Villanueva called out Gascon and said “We were never consulted as we were not the investigating agency,” Gascon’s office corrected the statement on Saturday, stating that the sheriff’s office was not involved.

“Need to correct our statement from yesterday. LASD was not involved in the decision on the felony charge, as they were not the investigating agency in that case,” a spokesperson for the district attorney’s office said.

Oops! This is just the latest of many cases where DA Gascon looks bad after giving a light sentence to a suspect because their age allows him to do it.

In this case the suspect apparently stole a car, drove into two people, tried to flee the scene and then lied to police about what happened (he claimed the woman and child had jumped out of nowhere which as you can see they did not). In fact, the clip above doesn’t give you the full picture because the mother clearly saw the car when it was still 75-100 feet away. It had plenty of room to get by her and instead drove straight for her. The mother, whose name is Rachel, said in her victim impact statement “I thought those were the last moments of our lives; we were dead.”

There’s no reason to think this act was anything but intentional so a 5 month sentence at a camp for kids on probation is barely a slap on the wrist for what could easily have been the death of a woman and her child.