When President Trump deployed the National Guard to quell protests last month against immigration raids unfolding across Los Angeles County, he claimed widespread lawlessness forced him to send in the troops.<\/p>\n
Days later, L.A. County Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman stepped in front of news cameras to announce charges against people who allegedly attacked police during the demonstrations. He avoided mentioning Trump or the swarms of masked federal agents descending on parks, workplaces and schools, but tried to push back against the White House\u2019s chaos narrative. <\/p>\n
Noting that the unrest was confined to a small section of downtown, Hochman promised to hold the lawbreakers accountable and disputed that Los Angeles was \u201cunder siege.\u201d <\/p>\n
Reflecting on the moment in a recent interview with The Times, Hochman said he wanted to set the record straight without igniting a partisan dispute. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I\u2019m hearing and reading and seeing is a political discourse that I have no interest in engaging in,\u201d he said. \u201cBut one that is misstating what the factual context is on the ground.\u201d<\/p>\n
A former Republican who rebranded as an independent last year, Hochman promised to \u201cget politics out\u201d of the district attorney\u2019s office. He endorsed Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential race but has stuck to his self-described \u201chard middle\u201d since, focusing instead on restoring order to an office he criticized as being too chaotic under his predecessor. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Federal immigration agents near MacArthur Park in the Westlake area on July 7. <\/p>\n
(Carlin Stiehl \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n
Now more than six months into Hochman\u2019s first term, prosecutors and law enforcement officials say the new district attorney has delivered \u201ca return to normalcy\u201d after the contentious term of progressive luminary George Gasc\u00f3n. By repealing nearly all of Gasc\u00f3n\u2019s sweeping policies, Hochman is allowing his prosecutors to mete out justice as they see fit, restoring a relative degree of harmony to an office that spent four years at war with itself. <\/a> <\/p>\n But Trump\u2019s aggressive immigration enforcement campaign is testing the limits of Hochman\u2019s neutrality. <\/p>\n When immigration agents followed two women through an L.A. courthouse last month and arrested them,<\/a> it drew outcries from nearly all corners of L.A.\u2019s legal community. But not Hochman, whose strained diplomacy has raised eyebrows. <\/p>\n \u201cWhen the head prosecutor in the county doesn\u2019t take a position, silence may appear to the community as support,\u201d said L.A. County Public Defender Ricardo Garcia. <\/p>\n Hochman said that his office is not collaborating with the federal government on immigration enforcement and that he would prefer if immigration agents let state-level cases play out before taking action. <\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m doing my best to focus on my mission, which is public safety. There\u2019s a lot of politics going on and a lot of noise above that mission, whether it\u2019s the president squabbling with the governor, squabbling with the mayor or anybody else who wants to interject in the political discussions,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m going out of my way nowadays to keep our focus in this office on the public safety aspect.\u201d<\/p>\n It was that focus that made Hochman speak up at the news conference. He recalled watching TV news and social media clips of the first weekend of protests that echoed Trump\u2019s proclamations that the city might burn down.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019d swear to God, L.A. was under siege. I mean I got scared the first night,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m calling up my people and I\u2019m saying, \u2018Is this going on throughout the city and the county?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Superpowers, celebrity trials and stark contrasts<\/p>\n Hochman\u2019s measured approach stands in contrast not only to Gasc\u00f3n\u2019s but also to his counterpart\u2019s at the federal prosecutor\u2019s office in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n During a news conference on arrests of people who allegedly attacked police during last month\u2019s protests, Hochman calmly laid out the legal reasoning for the various prosecutions during the politically charged events. By comparison, U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli took the microphone minutes later and parroted Trump verbatim before pushing a long-held conservative suspicion about out-of-state agitators causing violence. <\/p>\n Although Hochman talked as a candidate about crime in apocalyptic tones, took significant money from conservative megadonors and worked with fundraisers tied to Trump, his overhaul of the district attorney\u2019s office has not resembled the right-wing makeover some feared it would. If anything, Hochman\u2019s law and order orientation is in line with statewide voter shifts on criminal justice reform.<\/a><\/p>\n Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman announces \u201caggressive action\u201d against retail theft during a news conference outside a 7-Eleven in May.<\/p>\n (Al Seib \/ For The Times)<\/p>\n Gone are Gasc\u00f3n\u2019s reformist policies discouraging the use of cash bail and limiting the use of sentencing enhancements. The death penalty is back on the table, although Hochman has not yet pursued it against a defendant. <\/p>\n Six months into his term, data show Hochman is charging felonies at roughly the same rate Gasc\u00f3n did. Although the new district attorney vowed during his campaign to charge more juveniles as adults, so far he has pursued a total of five cases \u2014 the same number Gasc\u00f3n had at this time last year, according to a spokesperson for the office.<\/p>\n After Hochman wiped out Gasc\u00f3n\u2019s ban on filing certain misdemeanors, prosecutors charged nearly 70% of all low-level cases presented by police in the first half of 2025, records show. Hochman says it\u2019s a necessary step to deter criminals, but Garcia and other advocates warn it puts more people at risk of deportation.<\/p>\n Hochman says he\u2019s merely enforcing the law, and often presents himself as a man trying to get the trains back on time. In his downtown office, a framed silver age comic book sits by his desk, chronicling the adventures of \u201cMr. District Attorney.\u201d Hochman laughs when describing the 1940s hero who seems to share his straight-ahead approach to the job.<\/p>\n \u201cHe doesn\u2019t have any superpowers,\u201d Hochman says. \u201cTurns out, he\u2019s just a really good lawyer.\u201d<\/p>\n In an attempt to win over rank-and-file prosecutors, Hochman filled his administration with office veterans. And he\u2019s made a point of dropping in on trials large and small \u2014 from celebrity defendants to juvenile cases far from the headlines \u2014 to cheer on his staff.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve seen a return to normalcy. We have a general understanding of what the expectations are of us,\u201d said Deputy Dist. Atty. Ryan Erlich, president of the union that represents most of Hochman\u2019s staff. \u201cWe feel the upper management understands the job that we do, and it allows us to communicate and work on issues.\u201d <\/p>\n Marilyn Manson, Menendez brothers and political pitfalls<\/p>\n Good vibes aside, some of Hochman\u2019s decisions have rankled line prosecutors and led to political pitfalls.<\/p>\n The office has been on the wrong end of several high-profile cases this year, leading some prosecutors to question why the district attorney\u2019s even-keel behavior tends to falter when the lights are on brightest. <\/p>\n \u201cHe wants to be recognized, so he\u2019s always involved in these high-profile cases,\u201d said one veteran deputy district attorney, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. \u201cSometimes to the detriment of the case.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n