As Trump Calls for Law and Order, Can Chicago's Top Prosecutor Beat the Charge That She's Soft on

As Trump Calls for Law and Order, Can Chicago’s Top Prosecutor Beat the Charge That She’s Soft on Crime?

by Mick Dumke


Last month, just hours after businesses in downtown Chicago were struck by looters, former judge Pat O’Brien told a local TV interviewer that Cook County’s top prosecutor was to blame.

“Certainly Kim Foxx’s policies of not prosecuting, of dismissing cases, of dismissing all narcotics charges, of letting people who loot out on I-bonds to return to the looting — it is a dog whistle for these criminals to do exactly what they did last night,” said O’Brien, a Republican who’s challenging Foxx for Cook County state’s attorney on the November ballot. “We are going to become Detroit if we don’t fight Kim Foxx.”

Most of O’Brien’s claims were simply untrue; for starters, judges, not prosecutors, ultimately decide whether suspects can post bond and go free before trial. But he touched on the very real concerns of many Chicagoans who believe crime is out of control and officials like Foxx aren’t doing enough about it.

Foxx’s election four years ago, with backing from national reform groups, powerful local politicians and some Black Lives Matter activists, was viewed across the country as a pivotal event. She promised to restore trust and fairness to the state’s attorney’s office — a step toward making the criminal justice system more just.

Read more: https://www.propublica.org/article/as-trump-calls-for-law-and-order-can-chicagos-top-prosecutor-beat-the-charge-that-shes-soft-on-crime