In the News: KTLA 5 News quoted both ARCCOPS President and Riverside Police Department Chief Larry Gonzalez as well as Riverside County District Attorney’s Office District Attorney Mike Hestrin calling for Superior Court judges to stop the mass dismissals of criminal cases.
“It’s just causing some major issues for us, for my officers on the street,” Gonzalez said. “Just by the pure nature of the dismissals. A lot of them are domestic violence cases, a lot of them are firearms cases.”
Gonzalez offered some solutions.

“You think of the way we lived through the pandemic, and doing Zoom hearings, getting other facilities you can have courtrooms in, or at least hear cases in, anything they could possibly do would assist us in this,” Gonzales told KTLA. “Think outside the box. Get a place where we could try these cases so we’re not letting violent people out on the street.”

Riverside County DA Mike Hestrin is asking the court to reschedule judge trainings, which he said recently caused some courtrooms to be closed.
“I understand the need for ongoing training, however, when our courts are experiencing a crisis and engaging in the mass dismissal of cases, victims of crimes deserve the right to be the priority,” Hestrin said.
He added that some of the dismissed cases are serious felonies.

In less than a week, three separate child sexual assault cases have been dismissed, according to the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office.
In one of the cases, the Riverside County Superior court announced there were no judges available to hear the trial, but later one judge dismissed the case altogether due to the court’s inability to start the trial within the timeframe required by law, officials allege.
The DA’s office says two other child abuses cases were never brought to trial for the same reason.

All three cases have since been re-filed.
The full story is here: