FRESNO, Calif. (FOX26) \u2014 A man accused of stabbing a Fresno County deputy district attorney outside the Fresno Superior Courthouse has been identified, as county leaders renewed calls for tougher state laws they say would hold offenders more accountable.<\/p>\n
Fresno County District Attorney Lisa Smittcamp and Fresno County Sheriff John Zanoni said the attack happened Thursday and described it as a targeted act, not a random one.<\/p>\n
Smittcamp said the deputy district attorney was \u201cviolently attacked from the back in front of his friends, in front of his colleagues, by a man who intended, who understood, who knew what he was doing.\u201d<\/p>\n
The attacker was identified as 42-year-old Dustin Crawford of Fresno.<\/p>\n
Smittcamp said Crawford is believed to know the victim. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe prosecutor involved in the stabbing, that was the victim of the stabbing actually was the prosecutor who took a plea on Mr. Crawford’s case back in 2016, which was also an attempted murder case,” Smittcamp said. <\/p>\n
Officials said the 2016 case sent Crawford to prison for stabbing his neighbor and then assaulting county bailiffs. He was set to serve five years but was released early on parole in 2020.<\/p>\n
In the wake of the courthouse stabbing, Smittcamp called on state lawmakers to consult more directly with prosecutors and probation officers when crafting criminal justice policy. <\/p>\n
\u201cLegislators need to start to talk to prosecutors and to probation officers when they create these laws,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Smittcamp also criticized what she described as politically driven decisions in the courts and the way mental health reform is being used. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe have judges with political agendas,\u201d she said. \u201cNo children under this age period should be transferred to adult court. Anybody that claims a mental health condition, well, they’re mentally ill. They should just be forgiven. They should just be given another get out of jail free court. That’s literally the process.\u201d<\/p>\n
Zanoni communication between lawmakers and law enforcement needs to change.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I go to Cal State Sheriff meetings nobody comes and talks to Cal State Sheriffs. Nobody’s talking to the prosecutors to find out what’s really going on out there and how we’re really gonna solve these problems,” Zanoni said. “Not just you know words, not just lip service. How are we really going to solve these problems to help people in California?\u201d<\/p>\n
Zanoni said there is surveillance video of the attack and that investigators believe it shows Crawford heading straight for the victim. The video has not been released publicly.<\/p>\n
Officials said the deputy district attorney who was attacked is home and expected to make a full recovery.<\/p>\n
Zanoni also referenced a county ordinance discussed during a press conference that recently increased the ability of county employees to carry concealed weapons. The sheriff said he has contacted individuals at both the city and county level in hopes of expanding permitting to include city attorneys, public defenders, district attorneys and others to carry concealed weapons within county facilities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FRESNO, Calif. (FOX26) \u2014 A man accused of stabbing a Fresno County deputy district attorney outside the Fresno…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":440257,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,114,113],"class_list":["post-440256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=440256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440256\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/440257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=440256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=440256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=440256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}