Chicago City Wire

In declining to charge violent gang members and drug dealers, State Attorney Kim Foxx is allegedly prioritizing her political aspirations, according to a former judge now campaigning on the Republican ballot to unseat Foxx in November.

“I think she's looking to be the next Senator from Illinois,” said Pat O’Brien, who was elected as a Judge of the Cook County Circuit Court where he presided for eight years. “Kim Foxx is a disaster as a state's attorney so I’ve got to believe that she'd be a disaster as a Senator. She basically sees herself as Kamala Harris.”

Prior to being elected to the Senate in California, Harris had been the attorney general and a district attorney before campaigning for the presidency on the Democratic ticket. Experts say a reputation for being a tough prosecutor might have cost Harris and Amy Klobuchar the Democratic presidential nomination. Harris, for example, allegedly didn’t comply when asked to enlist criminal justice reforms and continued to uphold wrongful convictions even though they were reportedly based on misconduct by officials, according to media reports.

“Kamala Harris has spoken to Kim Foxx a number of times and they have a political mentor-mentee relationship,” O’Brien told the Chicago City Wire. “The worst thing that could happen is that she continue as the state's attorney but what’s even scarier is that somehow Kim Foxx would raise her profile to an office like Senator and, at some point, given the Democratic craziness, be considered on a shortlist for vice president or president of the United States.”

O’Brien hosted a press conference at the Daley Center in Chicago last week where he criticized Foxx for allegedly failing to press 100 murder charges against arrestees connected with drugs and guns, as Chicago police had requested.

“Kim Foxx declined to prosecute even though the police felt they had evidence and the right person in one hundred different instances and those persons walked out of the police station,” said O’Brien in an interview. “She fails at every stage of the process where the state's attorney is the key player.”

As previously reported in Chicago City Wire, because Foxx is the chief law enforcement officer in Cook County, she has the discretion on an individual basis to dismiss cases. 

“Kim Foxx has decided that being a prosecutor who actually enforces the law and does it even-handedly is not the way she'll get re-elected and it’s also not the way, as she seeks higher office, to be able to win those elections, which she sees in her future,” O’Brien said.

If elected, O'Brien announced he will create a specialized racketeering unit, which he says will destroy the gang structure of the Black Souls, Latin Kings and 2-6ers by summoning them to a grand jury with a subpoena.

“Each weekend brings another gruesome tally of more death to children, teens and adults,” said O’Brien. “Since Kim Foxx was elected State’s Attorney, gang violence has plagued neighborhoods in the city and suburbs with no rational or effective response from the county’s top law enforcement officer.” 

Over the 4th of July weekend last week, CBS reported that of the 80 people shot in Chicago, 15 were killed.

“Enough is enough,” he said.