ACTION ALERT - Support LA DA Gascón Position on Death Penalty

On October 12, 2011, a mass shooting occurred at the Salon Meritage hair salon in Seal Beach, California. Eight people inside the salon and one person in the parking lot were shot, and only one victim survived. The shooter, who was involved in a custody dispute with his ex-wife (one of the shooting victims), pleaded guilty to the shooting on May 2, 2014.

In March 2015, the Orange County District Attorney's Office was removed from the case following a ruling by Judge Thomas Goethals that the office had violated the defendant's rights by improperly withholding evidence from the defense. Due to that prosecutorial misconduct, Goethals ruled that the defendant was ineligible to receive the death penalty. In September 2017, the defendant was sentenced to eight terms of life without parole and one term of seven years to life for attempted murder.

Now and in an unrelated case, the current Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer has been drumming up press against Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón for not seeking the death penalty in the case of Los Angeles Sheriff Deputy Ryan Clinkunbroomer, who was recently shot and killed. In response to that, the Orange County Register ran an Op-Ed from Bethany Webb, the daughter/sister of two victims of the Seal Beach mass shooting. Bethany calls out Orange County District Attorney Spitzer to stop politicizing tragedy, and instead urges that we offer better support to victims and survivors and develop solutions to prevent these tragedies from happening in the first place. 

Excerpts from the Op-Ed below.

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Nearly twelve years ago, my sister, Laura, was killed in one of the worst mass shootings in Orange County history. A man, whose name I will not repeat, came to the salon where my sister worked and shot and killed her and seven other souls. My mother, who was there with my sister, was also shot but survived.

Nothing could have prepared me for the pain and despair that took hold over me. In the face of this unimaginable and senseless tragedy, I was consumed by a deep hate and even a desire to make this man suffer. I wanted him to pay for his crime. Still, my family and I opposed then-Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas’s decision to seek the death penalty. Ignoring our wishes, he insisted that the man who murdered my sister should be punished by death, and that pursuit of this punishment would in turn bring us healing and peace. It didn’t.

More recently, his successor, District Attorney Todd Spitzer, has taken a page out of the Rackauckas playbook. Putting his political ambitions first, D.A. Spitzer has inserted himself into tragedy and publicly excoriated Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón for not seeking the death penalty in the fatal shooting of Los Angeles Sheriff Deputy Ryan Clinkunbroomer. He insists that seeking the death penalty – in a state that hasn’t seen an execution in nearly two decades and has a moratorium on executions – is in the interest of justice. It is not.

Capital punishment is a hollow promise that is far too often forced upon families like mine and that some families understandably cling to. It is our anguish and desire to find some solace in the throes of agony that the death penalty system feeds and depends on. But rather than bringing closure, the death penalty revictimizes us and prolongs our suffering.

The man who killed my sister was ultimately sentenced to eight terms of prison without parole, with an additional 232 years to life – and for that I am grateful. I am also grateful to District Attorney George Gascón for his moral courage to reject the spectacle that is the death penalty.

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You can read the rest of the Op-Ed titled "D.A. George Gascón is right to oppose the death penalty" by Bethany Webb, in the Orange County Register. Webb is a member of California Crime Victims for Alternatives to the Death Penalty and a tireless advocate of abolishing the death penalty. In 2011, her sister, Laura, was killed and her mother, Hattie, was wounded in the Salon Meritage Shooting in Seal Beach, one of the worst mass shootings in Orange County history.