Phyllis Loya was leaving the gym when she heard what Gavin Newsom did to her son's killer.
Her son Larry Lasater was a cop and Marine who was ambushed and shot from a bush.
Now the man who murdered him just got the best news of his life thanks to California's governor.
Gavin Newsom Commutes All 548 California Death Row Sentences
On November 5 – the same day California voters handed Democrats a midterm sweep – Gavin Newsom commuted the death sentences of all 548 inmates on California's death row.
Serial killers, cop killers, and child murderers all got the same deal.
He converted every sentence to life without the possibility of parole, saying the state had no right to take a life.
Phyllis Loya called it something else.
"This is the worst day of my life," the 78-year-old said.
Her son, Officer Larry Lasater Jr., was shot and killed on April 23, 2005, while trying to arrest robbery suspects near a Pittsburg, California supermarket.
His killer, Alexander Rashad Hamilton, hid in a bush and ambushed him.
Lasater served five years with the Pittsburg Police Department and was a U.S. Marine Corps veteran.
He never got to hold his son – the boy was born two and a half months after his death.
Loya told the Post: "The closest my son ever came to holding his son was a sonogram that was buried with him in his lifeless hands."
Newsom just told the man who did that he gets to live.
For Loya, this is a double wound.
She has already spent years attending court appearances for the second robbery suspect, who had already received a life sentence.
Now both killers have matching sentences – and she says she has zero confidence the parole system will hold either of them.
California Voters Chose the Death Penalty and Gavin Newsom Chose His Presidential Campaign
This isn't the first time Newsom defied voters on this issue.
California rejected the repeal of the death penalty in 2012.
They rejected it again in 2016.
In 2016, they didn't just vote to keep the death penalty – they voted to speed up executions, passing Proposition 66 to accelerate the appeals process.
Newsom ignored it then with a 2019 moratorium on executions, and he just ignored it again with the largest mass commutation in American history.
The California District Attorneys Association made clear that victims' families received no meaningful advance notice and no opportunity to weigh in.
The association said: "The victims were never given a commutation. Their families were never given a choice. They deserve far better than this."
Phyllis Loya told the California Post she doesn't buy Newsom's moral framing for a second.
She accused him of being a "political animal" who timed the announcement for the precise moment election results came in.
"He wants to be president," she said. "So I was thinking he was testing the water, and the election made him go for it today."
She added: "He doesn't care about the will of the people. He cares about what's going to be good for Gavin Newsom. And if I sound bitter, I am bitter."
Newsom has said publicly he'll decide on a 2028 presidential run now that the midterms are behind him.
His political circle spent years fretting that commuting death sentences could hurt him with moderate voters.
He waited until Democrats swept and signed the commutations the same day.
Phyllis Loya figured that out from a gym parking lot.
Newsom's own letter acknowledged the move would "reopen painful wounds for victims' families."
He signed it anyway.
Richard Allen Davis and Charles Ng Are Among the 548 Killers Gavin Newsom Just Saved
Among the 548 killers Newsom just spared: Charles Ng, convicted of eleven murders in Northern California.
Richard Allen Davis, who kidnapped 12-year-old Polly Klaas from her bedroom in 1993 and murdered her.
Juries sentenced them to death, judges signed the orders, and the families buried their dead trusting the system to honor what it promised.
Newsom just told every one of them they trusted wrong.
Newsom has used executive power to override California voters on capital punishment three separate times – the 2019 moratorium, the dismantling of San Quentin's death row, and now this blanket commutation of every inmate.
He dismantled the execution chamber at San Quentin and relocated death row inmates into the general prison population.
Each move was calibrated to his presidential timeline and paid for by the families of murder victims.
No governor in modern American history has wiped a death row this large in a single action.
Loya went further than the official statements: "The putting the knife in and twisting it – that's the Legislature and the governor. That's who's retraumatizing me. Not the killer."
Gavin Newsom wants to run the country.
His presidential campaign will be built on the hope voters never hear Phyllis Loya's name.
Sources:
- Titus Wu, "Mom of slain cop breaks down over Gavin Newsom's mass commutation of death row killers," California Post, November 5, 2026.
- Kayla Galloway and Tom Vacar, "Gov. Newsom commutes sentences of California's 548 death row inmates," Fox KTVU, November 5, 2026.
- Molly Parks, "Newsom commutes executions for all 548 California inmates on death row," Washington Examiner, November 5, 2026.
- Chris Woodward, "Newsom commutes death sentences for all 548 on death row," The Center Square, November 6, 2026.
- "California district attorneys condemn Newsom's death sentence plan," KRCR News, November 5, 2026.
- "Father of Polly Klaas criticizes Gavin Newsom over potential mass death row commutations," Fox News, November 5, 2026.