Alvin Bragg makes history as Manhattan’s first black district attorney

By Allison P. Spencer Last updated Nov 4, 2021

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Bragg, a former federal prosecutor in the Criminal Division of the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, has beaten Republican Thomas Kenniff, a former prosecutor, JAG lawyer and Iraq War veteran.

Bragg talked to supporters on what the historic victory meant to him at a victory party in Harlem where he grew up.

â€œBesides being the first black district attorney, I think I’ll probably be the first district attorney to have the police point a gun at him. I think I’ll be the first district attorney to have a victim of homicide on his doorstep. I think I’ll be the first Manhattan DA to have a semi-automatic gun pointed at him. I think I’ll be the first Manhattan DA to have a loved one back out of jail and stay with him Bragg said in a victory speech Tuesday night. “And I will govern from that perspective.”

When he won the passionate Democratic primary, Bragg said he was once a 15-year-old who has been arrested “on several occasions at gunpoint by police.” Now, as the head of one of the country’s most prominent prosecutor’s offices, Bragg has said he is determined to end racial disparities and mass incarceration, and has campaigned on the promise to not to prosecute certain small crimes.

“I knew from a young age that there would be a better way to protect people’s civil rights and to have a real sense of community public safety,” Bragg told CNN in February. “I know how to achieve real public safety. And I can assure people that arresting people for things that have absolutely nothing to do with public safety does not make it safer.”

Bragg was most recently chief assistant attorney general in the New York attorney general’s office, where he says he helped prosecute the Trump administration more than 100 times and led the team that sued the Donald J. Trump Foundation, which made Trump personally pay $ 2 million. to a variety of charities and the dissolution of the foundation. Bragg also said he oversaw a lawsuit against Harvey Weinstein and his company that alleged a hostile work environment.

As Manhattan District Attorney, Bragg will lead the first criminal case against Trump’s company, which was indicted in June with its chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg in a 15-count indictment that alleged a scheme by fraud, among other charges. The former president has not been charged.

In January, Bragg told the “Ebro in the Morning” radio show that he was prepared to follow the facts of the case.

â€œI saw him up front and saw the lawlessness he can do,â€ Bragg said in the interview. “I believe we have to hold him accountable. I haven’t seen all the facts beyond the public, but I have pleaded with him and so I’m ready to go where the facts take me once I get them. will have seen and I will hold him responsible. “

Bragg is currently one of the attorneys leading the prosecution in the judicial inquiry against New York City officials and New York Police Department officers on behalf of Eric Garner’s mother, Gwen. Carr, regarding the handling of Garner’s death at the hands of a former NYPD officer by city officials, and whether or not the city properly investigated and disciplined the officers involved. A forensic investigation is a legal process rarely used by members of the public to investigate alleged negligence on the part of public officials in New York City.

At his victory party on Tuesday night, Bragg said that outgoing District Attorney Cy Vance called him to congratulate him and that Vance had already proven to be a “great partner in what I think is a smooth transition “.

He would get to work, he said, on Wednesday and plans to focus on getting guns off the streets first.

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Alvin Bragg makes history as Manhattan’s first black district attorney

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