Kamala Harris’ New Presidential Campaign Ads on Drug Policy DEMOLITION by California Lawmakers, Ex-Cops as ‘Rewriting History’

California lawmakers and former top cops say Kamala Harris’ new campaign ads portraying her as “tough” on drug trafficking do not match her record as a prosecutor, which advocated charging dealers only after they’ve been arrested a third time.

Harris, when she was San Francisco’s district attorney, proposed a policy in 2005 that would only prosecute drug dealers if they were caught selling narcotics for a third time, DailyMail.com has learned.

The plan sparked a scandal and was only stopped when the city’s police chief, Heather Fong, opposed it.

When Harris’ presidential campaign released an ad on August 7 touting her reputation as a “tough” prosecutor who “busted drug cartels” and “fought violent crime for decades,” California lawmakers and top law enforcement officials who served during Harris’s term decided to speak out and challenge the candidate.

“The campaign is trying to completely reinvent reality,” said Republican Congressman Kevin Kiley.

California lawmakers and former police officers are criticizing Kamala Harris’ recent campaign ads that portray her as a tough prosecutor

Lawmakers say the ads misrepresent her past, citing her 2005 proposal as San Francisco district attorney to prosecute drug dealers only after their third arrest, a proposal that was widely criticized and eventually killed.

“Those of us who actually lived in California — particularly San Francisco, where she was district attorney, but also Los Angeles — know all too well what the reality was like.

“She was a champion of San Francisco’s ‘sanctuary cities’ policy, she wanted drug dealers to be prosecuted only after the third attempt. She herself said in her book that she was a progressive prosecutor.

“The more the American people learn about her real record, the more they will see this campaign rhetoric for the sham that it is.”

Kevin Cashman, then deputy chief of the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD), said he and his colleagues were “shocked” by District Attorney Harris’s 2005 proposal.

“We saw right away that it would not be effective in our mission to keep San Francisco safe,” he told DailyMail.com.

“The district attorney called the strategy she recommended Operation Safe Streets. We in law enforcement called it Catch and Release, because we were supposed to capture them, identify them, and then release them back into the community without any action being taken.

“We realized that if we implemented that, we would be inundated with criminal commuters, if word got out that you can come to San Francisco and deal drugs without any consequences.”

Cashman said he felt the policy would lead to more officers putting themselves in harm’s way for no reason.

Critics, including GOP Congressman Kevin Kiley and former deputy chief Kevin Cashman, argue that Harris’s policies were more lenient than her campaign suggests

“Arresting drug dealers in San Francisco is one of the most dangerous things a cop can do,” he said. “Cops have been killed in the line of duty trying to arrest drug dealers.

“The Public Prosecution Service wanted us to release those drug dealers after we arrested them for drug possession.”

Cashman said Harris’ new campaign ad, which portrays her as someone who is “tough” on crime, is “not consistent with the facts.”

“Kamala Harris was the most liberal and progressive prosecutor I have worked with in over 30 years at the SFPD,” he said.

An October 2005 letter to Harris from Cashman’s then-boss, SFPD Chief Fong, outlined what she believed the proposed policy would “adversely impact.”

“Word of such a program would spread quickly through the drug community,” the top law enforcement official wrote.

“If out-of-town dealers find out that they can sell drugs in San Francisco without consequences, we will likely see an increase in sales and the crime that comes with them.

‘Drug dealers who sell drugs near a school would be released after a short detention. This would undoubtedly send the wrong message to observant children who unfortunately regularly witness drug dealing.

“Officers routinely go into harm’s way to make these arrests, believing there is sufficient probable cause and evidence to support the complaint. In short, such a program could be detrimental to morale and contrary to what every officer is taught.”

Cashman said that despite the chief’s letter, officials in Harris’s DA’s office tried again to convince police leaders to accept the policy, but were rebuffed and gave up the effort.

John McGinness, who was sheriff of Sacramento County when Harris was district attorney from 2004 to 2010 and was president of the California Peace Officers Association in 2008, said Harris’ new campaign ad “does not reflect the truth in any way.”

“I’ve dealt with law enforcement agencies all over the state of California,” he told DailyMail.com. “She was an outlier in that she seemed to embrace a hands-off approach to enforcing the law.”

Harris also faced criticism for other allegedly soft policies he enacted while serving as San Francisco district attorney.

Officials have pointed out that her approach, including a controversial plan to tackle drug crimes and attacks on police, was seen by law enforcement as too far-fetched and ineffective.

In February 2007, she announced plans to crack down on attacks on police officers, saying “violent people must be held accountable,” according to local news site SFGate.

But Harris eventually introduced a policy that made offenders accused of assaulting an officer eligible for pretrial release rather than prosecution.

The policy stated that if someone punched or spat at an officer, he or she would receive therapy and other help instead of a jail sentence.

“The bottom line is, if a suspect assaults a police officer, he goes to jail, not to school,” Cashman said.

In 2007, the San Francisco Police Officers Association wrote a letter to Harris protesting the policy.