Kim Foxx was reelected as Cook County State’s Attorney, bringing a strong message of social justice. Foxx, an African American woman who grew up in Chicago’s Cabrini-Green housing development, was first elected in 2016 in the wake of the police murder of Laquan McDonald.
In her November 3 victory speech, she spoke of Chicago’s broken criminal justice system “that saw men and women wrongfully convicted for crimes they didn’t commit,” and where it was thought that “justice in law and order should be accomplished by any means necessary.”
She said her victory brings “a promise of turning the page from a history of [Chicago] being the wrongful confession capital of the U.S. – from the history of Jon Burge, from the history of Ronald Watts, from the history of an incarceration system that has failed so many of our communities like the one I grew up in at 624 West Division.”
She spoke of the devastation in communities of color in Cook County. “I talked months ago about the casual racism that allows us to know that communities of color were dying at a significant impact versus the others … I ask us again to look at that same parallel with our justice system … are we satisfied with the system that sees so many people from neighborhoods that have been left far behind . . . try to understand the anger and angst and anguish for those who see prosperity when other neighborhoods are healthy and thriving [and theirs are not.]”
Jon Burge was a police commander who used torture to force confessions. Ronald Watts was a police sergeant who planted drugs and framed detainees.
