George Gascón

George Gascón (born 1954) is the District Attorney of San Francisco. Mayor Gavin Newsom appointed him to that post on January 9, 2011, to succeed Kamala Harris, who had been elected California Attorney General in November 2010. In November 2011, Gascón was elected as District Attorney of San Francisco after winning more than 62% of the vote in the third round of San Francisco's instant-runoff voting election. He was sworn in on January 5, 2012 as San Francisco's twelfth elected District Attorney,

Early life

Born in Havana, Cuba, Gascón and his family immigrated to the United States in 1967 and settled in Bell, California, a suburb of Los Angeles. After dropping out of Bell High School, Gascón served in the United States Army from 1972 to 1975, receiving an honorable discharge as a sergeant (E-5), and earned his high school diploma. In 1978, Gascón joined the Los Angeles Police Department. He then became a sales manager at a Ford Motor Company dealership and pursued higher education. He received a bachelor's degree in history from California State University, Long Beach and a Juris Doctor from Western State University College of Law. In 1987, he became a full-time police officer again and rose to the ranks of assistant police chief and director of the office of operations. Gascón has been an active member of the California State Bar since 1996.