Truly, these are dark days in San Benito County when a man
charged with pulling a gun on a school campus during a scuffle
after watching his son’s Christmas play will only spend 120 days in
jail.
Truly, these are dark days in San Benito County when a man charged with pulling a gun on a school campus during a scuffle after watching his son’s Christmas play will only spend 120 days in jail.
The District Attorney’s Office offered a plea bargain to Peter Prado Wednesday, a man facing two felony charges and 10 years in prison with a prior history of gang involvement and violence. In 1998, Prado pleaded guilty to a drive-by shooting and has been in the San Benito County jail 10 times since 1996.
Late last year, District Attorney John Sarsfield vowed to send every gang and gun charge to trial. “We’re taking a hard line, we are not going to plea bargain anything,” he told a Free Lance reporter in January.
When talking to the Free Lance Wednesday, Sarsfield backed off of that comment saying what he really meant was no plea bargains without his approval. Sarsfield approved the deal when it was first offered by former District Attorney Denny Wei. In a letter to the editor published today, he says Wednesday’s deal was re-extended by Deputy DA Candice Hooper, though he “wholly support[s] the actions of the prosecutors.” So his no-plea-bargain bravado carries as much meaning as his word – absolutely none. Ambiguous plea bargain policies aside, actions speak louder than words and when it comes to the DA the noise is deafening.
We don’t assume the role of judge and jury in Prado’s case, but he should have at least faced a trial in front of a jury of his peers. Being a DA isn’t solely about fighting the ones you know you can win. Sometimes it must be about fighting the battles that need to be fought. There can be honor in failure if the attempt is the right thing to do.
Instead, Sarsfield let a convicted criminal go with a slap on the wrist after he allegedly pulled a gun on a school campus…
If only our district attorney would prosecute alleged criminals with the same fervor he attacks his political enemies.
Sarsfield’s misdirected machismo is legendary. If Mr. Prado was a political enemy of the DA, he’d be facing life in prison without possibility of parole, likely be labeled a ring leader of Los Valientes and possibly be facing a vicious civil suit for something or the other. Alas, he’s just a career criminal accused of pulling a gun on a school campus when kids were around.
Meanwhile, the message Sarsfield repeatedly sends to our community is loud and clear. The criminals and gang members hear it, too: DA heavy on politics, soft on crime.
It’s a sad story in San Benito County that only the voters can change.
