How Chicago’s leaders are failing on violent crime
In the days and weeks following the police shooting death of 13-yearold Adam Toledo, the narrative of events from city officials began to misalign. The Chicago Police Department first described Toledo’s March 29 death as the result of an “armed confrontation” but later switched up the wording in written statements, separating “armed” from “confrontation.”
Later, a Cook County prosecutor in court said Toledo was armed as the shooting occurred, information that was printed and retold by media outlets for days. But then videos released to the public showed no weapon in his hand in the split-second he was shot.
Media watchdogs and some journalists posted complaints on social media about the need to be more mistrustful of information released by the Chicago Police Department. Does that mistrust now extend to the office of State’s Attorney Kim Foxx?
Not only did one of her assistants make a terrible, consequential mistake in court alleging Toledo was armed at the moment he was shot, Foxx also admitted she didn’t watch the video evidence herself before her prosecutor went to court in one of the first appearances linked to the Toledo case — a court appearance involving the person Toledo allegedly was with that night.
Kind of an important moment, to say the least. Kind of important to get that one critical detail — whether Toledo had a gun in his hand when he was shot — right. Foxx also said she did not review what her prosecutor intended to say that day in court.
“It’s not lost on me that this does look fishy, it’s not lost on me that this has shaken confidence, it is something I personally am concerned about, have been concerned about from the beginning, and we want to make sure that we are public with what happened here and how we make sure this doesn’t happen again,” Foxx told the Tribune.
Foxx’s prosecutor who gave flatout wrong information in court has been put on administrative leave. The Tribune described him as well-liked among his peers and that his punishment was viewed by them as “throwing him under the proverbial bus.”
Well of course. Isn’t that what many of our politicians do, at the expense of actually fixing problems together?
The cycle of blame for Chicago’s crime problem goes like this:
Community groups blame Mayor Lori Lightfoot for spending too much money on the Police Department and not enough on outreach. Lightfoot throws shade at Foxx’s office for being too passive with offenders who show up at bond court. Foxx questions police protocols and points to decisions being made by Cook County judges. And Chief Judge Timothy Evans says his judges can only work off the information brought to them by law enforcement, however incomplete.
Outside that bubble we have Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who campaigned on making Chicago crime a priority, distancing himself from the issue, along with Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle and our state and federal lawmakers.
Need a statement on paper about their “concern” for what’s happening in the city’s most-troubled neighborhoods? You got it. They’re great at news releases.
We, as a city and as a region, have been dealing with this finger-pointing and plausible deniability for years as violent crime numbers have swelled, as residents give up and move away and yes, as more Chicagoans die in violent confrontations or become victims of crime.
You can hardly mention “Chicago” anywhere in the world without a reaction about shootings and violence.
And those directly impacted — the residents, the workers, the business owners — are expected to choose sides on which part of the system is failing.
But that’s not real leadership. Our public officials should be working together, consistently and in good faith, to deal with Chicago’s violent crime epidemic. All hands on deck. No more outbursts on Twitter. No more passive-aggressive blame games at news conferences. No more useless news releases.
Work together. Do better. Pick up the damn phone. You have been hired by voters to solve big problems. None right now in Chicago is bigger than this one.