Los Angeles County likes to pretend it operates under the same penal code as the rest of California. It likes to claim that justice is blind, unbiased, unbothered by zip codes or headlines. But under George Gascón’s administration, the truth was far more corrosive. The DA’s office did not simply bend the law; it took statutes designed for clarity and twisted them into narrative devices. The clearest example of this prosecutorial alchemy is how the administration turned the legally defined concept of “fleeing the scene” into a political weapon, despite decades of case law proving that the conduct at issue could not, under any reading of California law, constitute flight.
To understand the magnitude of this distortion, it is necessary to start with what the law actually requires.
THE LAW: WHAT “FLEEING THE SCENE” ACTUALLY MEANS IN CALIFORNIA
California Vehicle Code §20001 has governed hit-and-run cases for nearly a century. The statutory language has remained remarkably stable, and appellate courts have refined its meaning with precision. The law requires a driver involved in a collision to stop “immediately at the scene of the accident or as close thereto as possible.” Those last words, “as close as possible”, carry legal weight. They do not represent ambiguity. They represent legislative intent.
California courts have repeatedly held that “immediately” does not mean a driver must slam on the brakes at the exact point of impact, particularly when safety, visibility, traffic flow, or mechanical damage make such an instant stop impossible or dangerous. The duty is to stop as soon as is reasonably safe. And the cornerstone of the legal analysis is always intent. There must be a voluntary, conscious decision to leave the area for the purpose of avoiding responsibility or identification. The law does not criminalize confusion, shock, mechanical failure, or following the instructions of a 911 operator. The law criminalizes evasion.
No case makes this clearer than People v. Scheer (1998) 68 Cal.App.4th 1009, the single most relevant appellate decision controlling what constitutes “flight” under §20001. In Scheer, the defendant did not stop at the precise point of collision. Instead, he traveled a distance before pulling over. The prosecution argued this distance alone was sufficient to show flight. The Court of Appeal rejected that theory outright. The court held that a driver who stops at the first reasonable opportunity, without the intent to escape liability, has not fled under the law. The reasoning is explicit: distance without intent is not flight. Delay without evasion is not flight. Only the combination of movement and intent satisfies the statutory requirement.
People v. Scheer is unambiguous. It is binding. And under Gascón’s administration, it was ignored.
THE NARRATIVE vs. THE FACTS: A CASE BUILT ON FICTION
The prosecution’s version of events in the Grossman case was designed for emotional impact. The phrase “fled the scene” appeared in filings, press releases, courtroom arguments, and media commentary as if it were a settled fact. But the actual sequence of events did not support such an accusation, and the DA’s office knew, or should have known, that their interpretation contradicted controlling case law.
According to the undisputed timeline, Grossman’s airbags deployed with explosive force at the moment of collision, a mechanical event known to disorient drivers and render vehicles temporarily uncontrollable. In that moment, she did not accelerate or attempt to escape. She fought to stabilize a disabled vehicle that had lurched forward. The distance she traveled, roughly 1/3 of a mile, is fully consistent with a driver attempting to regain control after an airbag detonation, a scenario the legislature explicitly contemplated when crafting the “as close as possible” language of §20001.
Grossman pulled over to the side of the road. She did not take flight. She did not attempt to hide the vehicle, flee the scene, or avoid identification. Instead, her car’s emergency telematics system immediately connected her to a Mercedes-Benz operator. Grossman, audibly confused, conveyed that she did not know what had happened. The operator then contacted 911. When speaking with the dispatcher, Grossman was instructed to remain by her disabled vehicle and wait for law enforcement to arrive. She complied precisely. She stayed with her car. She waited for deputies. At no point did she attempt to flee – in a vehicle or on foot.
Under the reasoning of Scheer, Cornett, and decades of case law, Grossman’s conduct is the very definition of lawful compliance. She stopped at the first safe location. She did not act with evasive intent. She remained at the scene until authorities arrived. There is no plausible interpretation under which her actions legally constitute “fleeing the scene.”
But the prosecution proceeded as if the law did not exist.
THE GASCÓN DOCTRINE: SELECTIVE ENFORCEMENT MASQUERADING AS REFORM
During George Gascón’s tenure, the DA’s office eliminated sentencing enhancements for repeat and violent offenders. Gun enhancements, gang enhancements, and prior-strike enhancements were universally forbidden. These changes were defended as reforms meant to reduce systemic inequities.
Yet even as enhancements were stripped from cases involving violent criminals, the D.A.’s office manufactured a new kind of enhancement for defendants who fit a particular demographic profile. High-profile, white, affluent defendants, those who generated media heat, were treated as political symbols rather than legal subjects. They were overcharged, mischarged, and recast as villains for public spectacle.
This is the paradox of the Gascón era. Enhancements vanished for career criminals with violent histories. But enhancements were effectively invented, through distorted legal theories and fabricated narratives, for defendants whose cases provided optics, headlines, and political insulation.
The “fleeing the scene” allegation against Grossman was not a legal conclusion. It was branding. It transformed a tragic accident into a moral indictment, a storyline suited for public consumption rather than legal scrutiny. And in doing so, it violated the fundamental principle that statutes must be applied consistently regardless of the defendant’s socioeconomic status or the media attention surrounding a case.
THE CONSEQUENCE: A DANGEROUS PRECEDENT FOR ALL CALIFORNIANS
The misapplication of the “flight” allegation sets a precedent that should alarm every resident of California. If a driver who stops, calls 911, remains at the scene, and complies with emergency instruction can still be accused of “fleeing,” then the concept has lost all legal meaning. If Scheer and its progeny no longer restrain prosecutorial overreach, then hit-and-run law has been replaced with hit-and-run fiction.
Under Gascón, we witnessed a justice system that removed consequences from dangerous offenders while manufacturing consequences for politically convenient defendants. The law was not merely bent; it was reinvented, reshaped, and weaponized.
The true definition of flight, intent to evade, was discarded. What replaced it was a cinematic narrative, crafted not by statutes or case law but by the demands of public relations.
THE RESULT: LOS ANGELES DIDN’T JUST MISAPPLY THE LAW. IT REVERSED IT.
Fleeing the scene is a legally defined act with clear elements and decades of appellate guidance. Those elements were not met in the Grossman case. They were not close to being met. The law was clear. The facts were clear. The prosecution’s duty was clear.
But clarity does not matter in a system where narrative has overtaken law.
Gascón’s administration did not simply ignore People v. Scheer. It operated as if this precedent never existed. The DA’s office discarded the principle that intent is the heart of the charge and replaced it with a political storyline designed to secure a conviction in the court of public opinion long before the courtroom doors opened.
This was not an error. It was a strategy.
California’s justice system cannot withstand prosecutors who treat statutes as raw material for messaging campaigns. It cannot survive a culture where narrative replaces evidence and where case law is treated as optional. Los Angeles didn’t just misapply the law. It inverted it, hollowed it out, and repurposed it as a tool of selective prosecution.
Until accountability returns to the DA’s office, and until courts demand adherence to the law rather than deference to optics, California will remain caught in a cycle where justice does not move forward, but backward. And the truth, once the cornerstone of prosecution, will remain the first casualty of political theater.
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