Chicago City Wire

Former judge Pat O’Brien isn’t surprised by the Chicago Tribune’s findings that Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx is dismissing felony cases more than her predecessor, Anita Alvarez.

While Alvarez served as state attorney from 2008 to 2016 when Foxx defeated her, Chicago Tribune data shows Foxx dismissed 29.9% of charges of felony cases from 2016 to 2019, compared to 19.4% by Alvarez from 2013 to 2016.

“Anita Alvarez was a good prosecutor and Kim Foxx is worse, but there were times when the office functioned at even higher levels than under Anita,” said O’Brien, who was a Cook County Circuit Court judge for eight years. “Some of that has to do with the lack of support from judiciary through the Chief Judge Timothy Evans and some of it has to do with the fact that there were a lot of changes that went on in how criminals operate and we’ve had to adjust to those changes.”

Among the changes in how criminals operate is the sharp rise of social media, according to O’Brien, who is running against Foxx on the Republican ticket.

“You've got more social media and from what it sounds like, early on in the looting that was going on Monday that the persons who wanted to loot got together on social media and shared content in order to coordinate a mass parade of cars to come down and strip the stores of all of their goods,” O’Brien told Chicago City Wire.

WGN-TV reported that people came in droves of thousands after allegedly being alerted by a social media post to congregate at Magnificent Mile in downtown Chicago from Sunday to Monday in response to an Englewood shooting involving police officers and a citizen.

“That was just a flimsy excuse for the kind of lawless behavior that was precipitated and it certainly isn't a defense,” O’Brien said. “It’s not a good reason.”

Foxx defended herself against critics to NBC Chicago, saying that only 29% of Black Lives Matter protester arrests that began in May were felonies.

In a Twitter post Monday afternoon, Foxx stated: “The violence and destruction we saw last night was unacceptable. The @cookcountysao has been extremely clear in making the distinction between peaceful protesters and prosecuting those causing harm, damage, and inciting violence."

However, O’Brien alleges that Foxx slept through the looting Sunday night.

“Kim Foxx is a failure and it has nothing to do with her desire to concentrate on violent crime because she's a failure at that,” he said. “If Chicago continues like this, we'll be looking at Detroit as a situation that we'd love to get to as opposed to one we want to avoid. It's a free-for-all.”