South Cook News

Worth Village Police Chief Tim Denton worries what the decreased number of felony cases coming from the office of Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx means for the state.

“I really feel like we're not doing ourselves justice and not letting the justice system do what it is meant to do,” Denton said at a press conference earlier this month on the subject of a proposed House Bill designed to help local police departments. “These cases are being cherry-picked in my opinion to ensure a win for the State's Attorney's office and not necessarily serving justice, especially to the victims out there. We are 100% catering to the offenders in these crimes.”

A recent Chicago Tribune analysis finds that Foxx’s office is dropping felony cases that include murder and other such serious offenses as sex crimes and attacks on police officers at a higher rate than predecessor Anita Alvarez.

Data shows over the last three years Foxx’s office moved to drop all charges against 29.9% of felony defendants, compared to a rate by Alvarez of just 19.4% during the final three years of her tenure. In all, a total of 25,183 people had their felony cases dismissed under Foxx through November 2019, up from 18,694 for a similar period under Alvarez.

Over that same period, Foxx’s office dropped 8.1% of homicide cases and 9.5% of felony sex crime cases, compared to 5.3% and 6.5% under Alvarez, respectively.

All of that comes after Foxx was swept into office on a reform-minded platform that included a pledge to reduce the population of Cook County Jail. While not disputing many of the findings uncovered in the Tribune report, Foxx added the numbers give an incomplete picture of her commitment to keeping the public safe.

“It is always eye-opening to be able to look at our own data and compare it to my predecessor’s past,” she said. “I can’t reconcile what her decision-making was, and how they chose to (dismiss) cases in the past. But I will say that this administration has been clear that our focus would be on violent crime and making sure that our resources and attention would go to addressing violent crime.”