Faith Johnson, the Republican candidate for Dallas County district attorney, vowed Wednesday to roll back one of John Creuzot’s hallmark policies if she is elected in November.
Class B misdemeanor thefts of personal items would be prosecuted under a Johnson administration, she said during a news conference to introduce the GOP’s local slate of politicians.
“As your chief law-enforcement officer of this county, I want you to be able to count on me,” said Johnson, who was Dallas County’s DA from 2016 to 2018. “I want the shop owners to be able to count on me. I want the large grocery chains to be able to count on me.”
Creuzot, who is running for a second term, upset law-enforcement groups and conservative politicians when he announced his office would not prosecute misdemeanor theft of personal items worth less than $750 without evidence the crime was for financial gain. He has said the policy aims to avoid saddling people struggling with poverty with a criminal record.
Last week, Creuzot released a one-page explainer of his policy, which shows that misdemeanor thefts are down for the fourth straight year and Class B misdemeanor thefts specifically are at a six-year low. The number of cases law enforcement filed has steadily decreased from 2,428 in 2017, when Johnson was district attorney, to 1,314 in 2021.
Johnson said Wednesday that her moment is now and that the county “is still in need of an exceptional public leader.”
She declined to say whether she thought Creuzot had failed as a leader, though. She also declined to comment on his marijuana policy — not prosecuting low-level, first-time offenses — or his record on prosecuting police accused of excessive force until after March’s Democratic primary, in which Creuzot faces former State District Judge Elizabeth Frizell.
But asked whether she would reverse Creuzot’s theft policy, Johnson responded: “Absolutely.”
“I’m going to abide by the law,” she said as other Republicans whooped and applauded.
Johnson served as district attorney after Gov. Greg Abbott appointed her to the job in 2016. But she lost the 2018 election to Creuzot, who won 60 percent of the vote.
She said that Democrats, including judges in the Frank Crowley Criminal Courts Building, have urged her to seek the DA’s office since then.
Local Republicans are mounting a concerted effort to turn Dallas County red — an uphill battle in a county that has been a Democratic Party stronghold since about 2006. But the county’s GOP chairwoman, Jennifer Stoddard-Hajdu, said far-left ideologies that trickle down to the local level have people re-evaluating the way they vote.
“We believe it’s time for change. We don’t believe that most individuals — whether you’re a Republican, a Democrat or an independent — agree with some of the erosion of personal freedoms that are going on not just across the country, but in our county,” she said.
Among the slate of candidates present, Stoddard-Hajdu introduced two who are vying to replace Clay Jenkins as county judge: longtime Dallas ISD trustee Edwin Flores and entrepreneur Lauren Davis, whose business was forced to temporarily close early in the pandemic because of stay-at-home orders.
Defeating Jenkins is a “very important task for us,” Stoddard-Hajdu said.
But Johnson was the obvious star of the show Wednesday, frequently eliciting cheers from her fellow Republicans.
Her predecessor, Susan Hawk, was the last Republican district attorney to win an election in Dallas County, defeating embattled Democrat Craig Watkins in 2014. Her resignation led to the appointment of Johnson — the county’s first Black female district attorney.
Johnson said Wednesday she was not familiar enough with police use-of-force incidents during the George Floyd protests in 2020 to comment on Creuzot’s handling of those cases. But she pointed to her own record on prosecuting law-enforcement officers who use unjustified force.
Under Johnson, prosecutors secured the murder conviction of former Balch Springs Officer Roy Oliver, for killing 15-year-old Jordan Edwards while on duty. Jurors sentenced Oliver, who is white, to 15 years in prison for killing the Black teen, and Johnson was praised for her office’s handling of the racially charged case.
In another case with racial overtones, Johnson’s prosecutors secured a murder indictment against Amber Guyger, a white police officer who was off-duty when she shot fatally Botham Jean, a Black man, in his apartment. Guyger had been arrested on the lesser charge of manslaughter.
Creuzot took over the DA’s office before Guyger’s trial and agreed she should be charged with murder. His prosecutors secured a conviction, and jurors sentenced her to 10 years in prison.
“Understand, I love my police,” Johnson said. “But people who step outside the law … I am for prosecuting whoever steps out of that, whether you’re police or a doctor or whoever.”
