After a summer of “seriously considering it,” former Philadelphia prosecutor Carlos Vega officially announced his entrance into the 2021 race for the city’s District Attorney on Dec. 16.

He will run against incumbent District Attorney Larry Krasner in the Democratic primary.

Vega’s message, which he spoke to a crowd of supporters in front of the DA’s office, was that he was in it for the victims of crime in the city and their families.

“This city deserves a district attorney that is a voice for the victims,” he said.

Alongside him at the announcement press conference were three who he previously helped as a prosecutor.

Aleida Silva-Garcia’s brother, Alex Rojas-Garcia, was murdered in 2015 and Vega was the initial prosecutor to work with the family to convict the man who killed him. 

They worked together for three years on the case until current District Attorney Larry Krasner assumed office and made Vega one of the first 31 ADAs he fired to start his tenure. 

Krasner then assigned what Silva-Garcia called a “less experienced” prosecutor with “no knowledge” of her brother’s case to continue Vega’s work.

“We were re-traumatized,” she said.

A similar thing happened to speaker Krystal Vargas, when she said two detectives showed up at her door 25 years after her sister’s murder to reveal that one of the two killers caught and convicted for the crime was now out of prison on account of being a juvenile when it occurred. 

In 1994, Vega was the prosecutor that successfully fought for both men caught to be charged and sentenced for first-degree murder.

The man released in 2019 also revealed the names of two other men involved in the crime. Neither have been caught according to Vargas.

“Our wounds were reopened,” she said.

In his own speech, Vega also recalled his own prosecutorial record to cite that he’s tried over 450 murder cases in his career. 

At the time of his announcement press conference, there were 471 homicides in 2020 alone — a statistic he and other speakers repeated. 

Vega himself called the number “hard to comprehend.”

He also attacked Krasner for the support he received in 2017 from George Soros without directly naming him. 

Instead, he called the current DA “bought and paid for by the rich elite,” and his sweeping criminal justice reform “an experiment that is costing the lives of our children.”

In response to Vega’s announcement, a rep from Krasner’s office told the Philadelphia Inquirer that the district attorney looked forward to debating him “on the issues.”