PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania — House Republicans highlighted the deaths of slain police officers in a Philadelphia field hearing that laid blame at the feet of District Attorney Larry Krasner.
The House Judiciary Committee met in the city on Friday for its fourth hearing focused on urban crime, receiving testimony from family members of those officers who accused Krasner of giving criminals a “free pass.”
Krasner, elected to a second term in 2021, is one of several district attorneys who have pursued criminal justice reforms that Republicans say have led to a nationwide spike in crime. He has advocated cashless bail and reduced sentences for nonviolent offenses.
“When you don’t prosecute bad guys, you shouldn’t be surprised that you get more crime. When you defund the police, you shouldn’t be surprised when you get more crime,” Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) said in his opening remarks.
Democrats on the committee panned the hearing as an attempt to politicize the crime wave, which peaked during the pandemic and has since declined. Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), the ranking Democrat, denounced what he called “pure political theater designed to create a forced narrative” about his party ahead of the November elections.
However, its members largely sidestepped Krasner altogether, striking a sympathetic tone toward the victims testifying on Friday while emphasizing the need for legislative solutions to violent crime, including red flag laws.
Democrats invited two witnesses with expertise in gun violence prevention.
Terri O’Connor, the widow of a slain Philadelphia police officer, was among the GOP witnesses. She led off the testimony recounting the story of her husband’s death while serving a murder warrant in 2020.
Republicans also invited the parents of Sgt. Christopher Fitzgerald, another officer killed in the line of duty. Each blamed Krasner for policies they said had enabled criminals at the expense of public safety.
“If our district attorney, prosecutors, and judges did their jobs, maybe he’d still be here today,” O’Connor said of her husband, holding back tears as she concluded her testimony.
Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D-PA) accused the committee of “trading on the pain of other people” with the invitations but was forced to clarify a statement she made moments earlier that Jordan had “brought his traveling circus to town” with the hearing.
“We aren’t circus animals,” Joel Fitzgerald, the father of Christopher, retorted when Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) asked about the remark. “We wouldn’t be used as circus animals.”
Scanlon responded that she was referring to the “actions of our colleagues,” not the witnesses, “whose pain is very real.”
In another moment of controversy, Nadler, one of the longest-serving Jewish members of the House, accused Gaetz of antisemitism when he entered into the record an article tying Democratic megadonor George Soros to the election of progressive district attorneys.
Krasner did not appear at the hearing on Friday. Jordan confirmed to the Washington Examiner that he had not been invited, though he added he “wouldn’t mind” cross-examining him after Krasner said this week he was open to appearing.
Nonetheless, Krasner’s policies were central to the hearing as Republicans focused on everything from violent crime to retail theft.
“We want less crime. If you want less crime, you’ve got to talk about what’s creating it,” Jordan said when asked what he hoped to get out of the hearing.
His decision not to invite Krasner, he said at a press gaggle following the testimony, was to give the families he invited the spotlight.
The focus is not new. House Republicans held a field hearing last year in New York City centered on another district attorney, Alvin Bragg. Bragg is prosecuting former President Donald Trump on alleged business fraud charges.
Krasner has faced controversy for his policies. The Pennsylvania House impeached him in 2022, in part for his refusal to enforce certain minor crimes. House Republicans invited the special prosecutor for that impeachment to testify on Friday as well.
At the time, Krasner dismissed the body for not “presenting a single shred of evidence connecting our policies to any uptick in crime,” while the Senate indefinitely postponed his trial amid a court battle. He was overwhelmingly elected to a second term a year earlier.
Judiciary Democrats noted that crime has fallen since the pandemic, with a 35% drop in homicides so far this year compared to the same time period in 2023. During Friday’s hearing, they focused on gun laws as the primary remedy to the violence.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Scanlon, a Pennsylvania lawmaker who was the victim of a carjacking in 2021, called for greater funding for the federal agency responsible for enforcing gun trafficking laws and said Congress needs to regulate “untraceable, unregulated firearms” such as “ghost guns.”
The Washington Examiner reached out to Krasner for comment.
