(Feb. 22, 2019 – Source: Nuccio DiNuzzo/Getty Images North America)
*Cook County state’s attorney Kim Foxx, who was heavily criticized for her handling of the Jussie Smollett case, announced Tuesday she is running for re-election.
Foxx tweeted her announcement Tuesday morning, writing “I ran for Cook County State’s Attorney four years ago because we needed to change criminal justice in our county. Today, I’m officially running for re-election. We’ve gotten a lot done, and we can’t go back now.”
Foxx revealed over the summer that she received death threats after her office decided to drop charges against Smollett in connection with a staged hate crime earlier this year in Chicago.
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I ran for Cook County State’s Attorney four years ago because we needed to change criminal justice in our county. Today, I’m officially announcing that I’m running for re-election. We’ve gotten a lot done, and we can’t go back now. pic.twitter.com/0ECV7BRJGH
— Kim Foxx (@KimFoxxforSA) November 19, 2019
Smollett was indicted on 16 counts for filing a false police report about being attacked in a hate crime in Chicago on Jan. 29. He alleged two masked men hurled anti-gay slurs attacked him, doused him with bleach and tied a noose around his neck. But cops determined he paid two Nigerian brothers to help him stage the attack in an elaborate hoax because he was unhappy with his “Empire” salary and wanted sympathy to secure a fatter paycheck.
The city filed a civil complaint against Smollett after he refused to reimburse $130,000 in overtime pay to officers who worked his case. A Cook County judge also appointed a special prosecutor to review Foxx’s handling of the Smollett case.
When recently asked by at a forum on criminal justice reform what she learned from the Smollett experience, Foxx explained:
“I learned that change is hard,” Foxx answered. “We started this administration talking about the fact that we were going to use our criminal justice system to deal with violence. And those cases that could be dealt with outside of the justice system, we would deal with outside of the justice system. But even as you do that, you have to keep people informed. You have to talk about it. You can’t do things where people don’t understand. Because once that happens, once the misunderstanding happens, it’s hard to unwind that. So I think the biggest lesson that I’ve learned thus far, and not that there aren’t ongoing lessons, is making sure that we are keeping the public informed about not just what we do, but why we do what we do.”
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