Chicago is a crime spree in progress. Homicides in Cook County have topped 1,000, nearly 800 of them in Chicago. A stroll in the park or a trip to the grocery is a journey into harm’s way as accused murderers, violent gun offenders, armed robbers, and muggers are let loose to reign lawlessness on our community.
The effects of all this hit home this summer when my daughter got her driver’s license. With carjacking at a record high, we spent an evening training her how to defend herself against an armed attempt to steal her car, or worse, violate her. It brought new meaning to the question, “Do you really want to raise your children in Cook County?”
The driver’s training experience reminded me why I ran for State’s Attorney against Kim Foxx. As a mom fearful for all our children, I repeatedly warned voters of the peril of electing a chief prosecutor without felony trial experience whose idea of justice discounts the essential precept of individual accountability.
While all the blame for the Chicago crime plague does not fall on the State’s Attorney, the correlation between her time in office and our growing sense of wild-west-style insecurity cannot be ignored. As we all know, her notion of prosecution is formulated with racial animus and a notable bias toward non-charging as a way to correct past injustices.
Foxx cites a raft of statistics to refute claims that she is soft on crime. She angrily told reporters recently that the narrative accusing her of not charging cases “hurt my heart.” Apparently, it doesn’t hurt enough to take the steps necessary to halt the narrative by applying prosecutorial norms like the accepted standard of probable cause as a basis for charging violent crimes and the use of pre-trial detention as a strategy for protecting the community from further criminal violence.