Kim Foxx blasts Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot's comments on shootout: 'Inappropriate, wrong'
CHICAGO - Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx blasted Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Tuesday for her comments on a gang shootout that left one man dead and others injured.
Five men were arrested for the shootout in Austin at the time, but charges were not filed and they were released.
On Monday, Lightfoot, who is also a former prosecutor, said: "She's got to explain to the public, why? Given that evidence, a pod camera right there that captured the entire thing and police officers on the scene in uniform, and a squad car there, why that isn't enough?"
Foxx unloaded on the mayor in a press conference on Tuesday morning, noting that her job is to get a conviction based on evidence, and it's not to try a case in the media.
"I find myself here today having to respond to a narrative given by the mayor," Foxx said. "There were statements made by the mayor yesterday regarding the evidence in this case that were simply not true. It was inappropriate. It was wrong."
The shooting happened around 11 a.m. last Friday. The shooting was caught on a pod camera and police say more than 70 shots were fired. Two groups of gang members were shooting at each other. One of the alleged shooters died and two others were wounded.
"In order for us to bring charges in a case, it’s not simply we saw in a video that something happened. We need to be able to say that the person we arrested and charged is the same person who engaged in the act," Foxx said.
"As our prosecutor, we do not talk about pending cases," Foxx said. "We recognize that our words as they go out can be used by a defense counsel or a jury. This is not a sport, these are not numbers on scoreboard, these are lives, these are communities."
Foxx singled out Chicago Police Area 5, which is on the South Side in the Pullman neighborhood.
"In the last three months, you've heard about three cases that our office was seeking a rejection and continued work on. It is not a coincidence that those three cases have come from Area 5. It is not a coincidence that those three cases and the leaks to the media have come out of Area 5," Foxx said.
"We are and have been the source of the most wrongful convictions in the country," Foxx said. "I mention that in respect to what we’re talking about right now."
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Foxx also accused Mayor Lightfoot and Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown of playing politics with the lives of crime victims.
"We cannot cut corners. We cannot play games," said Foxx at a news conference in Englewood.
The back and forth is part of a growing political battle over who is to blame for Chicago’s crime problem.
Foxx has called for a meeting with Mayor Lightfoot, Superintendent Brown and Area Five detectives to help iron out the conflict.