Last week, the Chicago police union, the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) Lodge 7, announced a vote of no confidence in Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx. Foxx has released many convicted criminals, prosecuted police, and most recently her office dropped the 16 felony counts against Empire star Jussie Smollett in his hate hoax. Foxx responded with a press conference of her own, denouncing criticism of her office as based in racism and hosting a former Black Panther who called the FOP the enemy of black people and an activist who called them the “Blue Klux Klan.”
“The FOP and its members are shocked and disgusted that Kimberly Foxx could stand idly by while former Black Panther Bobby Rush claimed the FOP is the enemy of Black people and activist Ja’Mal Green claimed we were the Blue Klu Klux Klan in criticizing Kimberly Foxx’s abysmal conduct as a prosecutor,” Martin Prieb, the FOP’s second vice president, told PJ Media on Monday.
“That Ms. Foxx could claim racism is only a sign of how desperate she is, how little substance there is to her claims, and the lengths she will go to to avoid accountability to the citizens of Chicago,” Prieb added.
Smollett infamously claimed that in January, masked white attackers wearing MAGA hats screamed, “This is MAGA country!” before seizing him, putting a noose around his neck, and pouring an unknown bleach-scented liquid on him. In February, police announced that they had begun investigating Smollett upon discovering evidence that suggested the Empire actor had paid Olabinjo “Ola” Osundairo and his brother Abimbola “Abel” Osundairo to attack him. Unearthed evidence included receipts showing the brothers buying the rope used in the attack and a check Smollett gave them.
After police arrested Smollett, prosecutors charged him with 16 felony counts. Mysteriously last month, the prosecutors dropped all 16 counts. Smollett and his attorneys insisted he had been telling the truth from the beginning, but the police and even Mayor Rahm Emanuel did not buy it. Emanuel called the dropping of the charges a “whitewash of justice.” President Donald Trump has called for a federal investigation into the case.
Foxx suggested that criticism of her office’s decision to drop the charges was rooted in racism. When Rush and Green accused the FOP of being the enemy of black people and even being in league with the Ku Klux Klan — the witty formulation “Blue Klux Klan,” based on the pro-police movement “Blue Lives Matter,” is particularly horrendous — Foxx did not disagree or denounce them.
“Is it necessary to even respond to such claims?” Prieb asked PJ Media. “We have an African American superintendent. We have an African American former superintendent. Much of the command staff is African American. The former prosecutor for Cook County was Latina. Our members comprise the full spectrum of race and sex.”
“The truth is that Kimberly Foxx’s policies and decisions place members of minority communities in greater danger, just as Bobby Rush’s Black Panthers in truth exploited and harmed African American communities in the 1970s, which they disguised in the false rhetoric of social justice,” Prieb concluded.
Kim Foxx should be ashamed of herself, and the activists she had on stage.
Follow Tyler O’Neil, the author of this article, on Twitter at @Tyler2ONeil.
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