A mass exodus from Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx’s office is reaching new heights as internal frustrations grow over a perceived failure to curb Chicago’s crime wave.
Foxx has come under intense scrutiny this year amid an unprecedented spike in resignations. Some say she attributes the mass exodus of senior staffers too heavily to COVID-19, even as other prosecutor’s offices in the Chicago metropolitan region maintained their sizes or even expanded despite rising crime rates.
“Foxx’s implemented policies that have made Chicago less safe, that have made people feel unsafe and emboldened criminals, and created this new level of in seeing brazenness among criminals that was unimaginable prior to her … tenure,” former Cook County Assistant State’s Attorney Dan Kirk told Fox News. “But I also think that her term in office of state’s attorney has been an abysmal failure from the perspective of what it’s done to the state attorney’s office in recent years.”
CHICAGO VETERAN PROSECUTOR RESIGNS, CITING ‘ZERO CONFIDENCE’ IN KIM FOXX
“I hear it every day. … I still know of hundreds of people in office, and I only hear one unanimous message from them, which is that morale has never been lower in the office,” he said. “If they don’t respect the administration, they don’t believe that the administration puts victims first. They believe that the administration puts politics and PR first above victims.”
Two hundred thirty-five prosecutors have resigned since July 2021, the Chicago Tribune reported in July. That number looks likely to have grown significantly since then; Fox News found that three prosecutors resigned on the same day at some point in the last two weeks.
“I am not dismissing any of the very real concerns and stressors that my assistants are feeling right now,” the prosecutor told the newspaper in July. “It’s real. I am trying as best I can with the resources that I have to address that. The reality is, this pandemic has been extraordinarily difficult in maintaining staffing in an already stressed environment, which has an impact on morale. … I have applauded the fact that [assistant state’s attorneys] have been working through this backlog, but that requires a lot of work. The success of getting through the backlog comes at a price.”
The same month, a 25-year veteran of the second-largest prosecution office in the United States, Assistant Cook County State’s Attorney Jim Murphy, wrote a scathing resignation letter in which he said Foxx’s light stance on crime was the reason for his departure.
“I can no longer work for this Administration. I have zero confidence in leadership,” he wrote. “This administration is more concerned with political narratives and agendas than with victims and prosecuting violent crime. … That is why I can’t stay any longer.”
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Foxx gained national attention for her handling of the Jussie Smollett case, in which the actor was found to have staged a hate crime against himself. A report by special prosecutor Dan Webb found that Foxx mishandled the case, even lying to police on several instances. For instance, she said that she had cut all contact with Smollett’s younger sister upon taking up the case, but her phone records showed she had exchanged 17 texts and five phone calls with Jurnee Smollett since she made the claim.
Though homicides are down in Chicago by 17% this year compared to last year, with 523 compared to 633 over the same time period, they remain higher than previous years, according to the outlet. Other violent crimes, including burglary, robbery, theft, and motor vehicle theft, are reportedly up by 37% compared to last year.
