A Conversation with Ryan Khojasteh: Candidate for District Attorney

Come hear from one of the candidates for District Attorney, Ryan Khojasteh! He will be sitting down with Managing Editor of Mission Local, Joe Eskenazi, to discuss his candidacy, campaign, and platform. Come with your questions ready!

Ryan Khojasteh is running to be San Francisco’s next District Attorney because there is a better way to achieve public safety.

His commitment to our city has uniquely prepared him for the role – from his respected career prosecuting violent crimes, supporting victims and working closely with the police as a Deputy District Attorney, to his work to combat anti-AAPI hate crimes as a San Francisco Immigrant Rights Commissioner.

At a young age, Ryan lost a beloved family member to an armed robbery-turned-homicide. This sparked his life-long devotion to preventing crime and gun violence, supporting victims and their families and improving public safety. His uncle was killed by two young people, aged 19 and 20, who had gotten on the wrong path. As a child, Ryan knew he wanted to make sure that other kids didn’t go down a similar path that leads to violence and death. This tragedy ultimately led him to become a criminal prosecutor – an Assistant District Attorney and then Deputy District Attorney.

While serving as a San Francisco Assistant District Attorney, Ryan got hundreds of kids back on track at San Francisco Juvenile Hall, prosecuted serious and violent felonies at the Hall of Justice and served as a neighborhood prosecutor to strategically prevent and address neighborhood crime. When the Mayor’s handpicked DA was appointed, Ryan was fired after publicly advocating for the continuation of evidence-based programs that stopped our youth from reoffending. He went on to become a Deputy District Attorney in Alameda County, where he has served in the Collaborative Courts, Victim Restitution and Parole & Probation Revocation Units.

To learn more, please visit www.ryanforsfda.com!

Joe Eskenazi is the Managing Editor and Columnist for Mission Local. Joe was born in San Francisco, raised in the Bay Area, and attended U.C. Berkeley. He never left.

“Your humble narrator” was a writer and columnist for SF Weekly from 2007 to 2015, and a senior editor at San Francisco Magazine from 2015 to 2017. You may also have read his work in the Guardian (U.S. and U.K.); San Francisco Public Press; San Francisco Chronicle; San Francisco Examiner; Dallas Morning News; and elsewhere.

He resides in the Excelsior with his wife and three (!) kids, 4.3 miles from his birthplace and 5,474 from hers. The Northern California branch of the Society of Professional Journalists named Eskenazi the 2019 Journalist of the Year.

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