Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey didn’t plan to serve the office. The L.A. native says she thought she wanted to be an elementary school teacher.

“I initially was reluctant to run, because I knew it was a tremendous sacrifice to run for office. I wanted to do the job cause I had ideas, but running for office I knew was going to be taking me way outside of my comfort zone,” she said.

On this episode of Inside the Issues, Lacey talks about her Mental Health initiative, the 2020 election, and the controversy surrounding the Ed Buck case and what it was like to have people protesting outside her office that she didn’t do enough.

“It’s difficult. I grew up like a lot of people that are out there protesting. I can identify with the frustration of watching so many men of color get killed in our country and wondering why. My parents lived through the civil rights era and they exposed me to a lot of that because they never wanted me to forget about what it was like and what it is like to be an African-American in this country,” she said.

Let Inside the Issues know your thoughts and watch Monday through Friday at 8 and 11 p.m. on Spectrum News 1.