Former Alameda County DA Nancy O'Malley backs recall of Pamela Price

ALAMEDA COUNTY, Calif. (KGO) -- The Alameda County District Attorney's Office has been held in high esteem statewide and nationally for decades. But not anymore, says former District Attorney Nancy O'Malley.

"For over 22 months, Pamela Price has been the district attorney. She is not qualified nor competent to hold that position," O'Malley said.

O'Malley announced she is backing the recall against the current district attorney, Pamela Price. She made the announcement during an event hosted by the group S.A.F.E, which is leading the recall effort.

"Under Pamela Price's regimes, she ignores the rights of victims, and this is one of those heartbreaking parts of her being the district attorney," O'Malley said.

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O'Malley served as D.A. from 2009 to 2023. Price lost to O'Malley in the 2018 election, but then won in 2022 after O'Malley retired. Price said she walked into an office that was dysfunctional. O'Malley accuses Price of using her office improperly, ignoring the law, and intimidating and discriminating against people who oppose her.

"She has undermined all of these programs that we have put together because they are not interesting to her. Or she doesn't care about victims or empowering people," O'Malley said. "And basically, she has taken this district attorney's office to a place where it cannot function."

O'Malley claims Price canceled restorative justice programs, that Price campaigned on, simply because those programs were started by O'Malley. Although, O'malley admitted, some may owe to a decrease in funding.

"Some of those grants have gone away. Some of those grants did not get renewed. Some of them, from what I understand, she just didn't have an interest in it. And, because it was a program that I started," O'Malley said.

One such program O'Malley named is CARES, or Community Assessment Referral & Engagement Services.

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Price fired back, refuting many of O'Malley's claims, while taking questions at a press conference held to update an ongoing prosecutorial misconduct case.

"I have no idea what she is talking about, other than the CARES Navigation Center is the program we rescued in 2023," Price said.

Price said the CARES program is just a $6 million grant, data which is publicly available. Price spoke of hiring experts to oversee various departments and to help victims.

"There is no public secret that my predecessor was not helpful to us in our transition. And she had a candidate that she campaigned very hard for. Her hand-picked successor. He lost," Price said. "What the public should know, is Nancy O'Malley represents the last desperate attempt to go back to a time when police officers, police unions, controlled this office."