NEW DA: ‘TOUGH QUESTIONS’
Transition team member vows to grill prosecutors on ‘what it means to be a gangster’
A transition team member for DA-elect Rachael Rollins announced on Facebook he wants to grill would-be prosecutors who are looking to keep their jobs with an eye to redefining “what it means to be a gangster.”
“I want everyone from The Hood to The Hills to understand how important this is. Not just for me but for everyone with a mile long CORI,” wrote Christian White, referring to the state’s criminal records system. White also talked about fatherhood, using the hashtag “#FromSingleCellToSingleDad.”
Rollins confirmed White’s Facebook entry, telling the Herald yesterday he’s “excited” to be part of her team. She defended his “First Amendment right to post,” adding the “final decision” on who stays and who is hired in the Suffolk District Attorney’s Office is hers alone.
When asked about White’s reference to criminal records, Rollins said she’s “really proud he’s talking about taking responsibility of the decisions he made in the past.”
“There will be new voices never heard before on my team, including victims, academics, judges, the clergy,” Rollins said. “I will have 30 to 40 people, he is just one.”
Rollins said all assistant district attorneys who want to stay on will face “tough questions.”
“My ADAs will need to understand the human experience of the court system,” she said. “They will need to face questions and will have to be a little uncomfortable.”
That will include questioners like White, she said.
“If people pay their debt to society, they should be welcomed back,” she added.
“I make the final decision,” she stressed, “but I have an awesome group helping me make a final decision.”
Rollins has been both criticized and praised for her “decline to prosecute” list — including charges such as resisting arrest, drug dealing, larceny under $250 and trespassing. She takes office Jan. 2.
“I want to focus on violent crime,” she said yesterday. “I want to get the solve rate up ... and I will work with the chiefs and mayors.”
In his post White said what Rollins is doing is “epic.”
White said in other posts on his Facebook page that he was shot as a teen and “probably deserved to die for all the (expletive) I was doing.” He did not return Herald requests for comment.
He did add in his post, taken down last night: “I want to redifine (sic) what it means to be a gangster and a man and a dad. I want everyone to understand that it’s not only change within each and every one of us which is crucial to the success of us as a people but the changing of so many of the racists (sic) policies which have held us back for so long.”