Kim Foxx told local news outlets her Cook County office will begin next week dropping misdemeanor charges against as many as 817 defendants arrested during sometimes-violent protests against police and racism.
- Prosecutors will be instructed to review disorderly conduct, public demonstration and unlawful gathering charges with "presumption of dismissal,” she said.
- Resisting arrest, mob action and aggravated battery to a police officer, she said, will be dismissed in the absence of incriminating body cam or dash cam footage.
- She used the same justification for her controversial policy of not bringing felony charges against shoplifters caught with less than $1,000 worth of stolen goods.
Last March, Foxx dropped felony disorderly conduct charges against Smollett, a black and openly gay actor, over his alleged faking of a bigoted attack against himself.
- The move drew widespread condemnation, including from Chicago officials and police.
- Smollett was again indicted for allegedly lying to police in February 2020 as part of an investigation of Foxx's alleged mishandling of the case.
- The actor has maintained his innocence.
She has often sought to portray herself as an answer to President Donald Trump.
- When protests against police erupted in late May, Foxx called Trump’s threat to crackdown on rioters “hateful and racist rhetoric.”
- In a June 10 op-ed for the Sun-Times, she voiced support for the protests and said racism in America is “intentional and structural.”
- Foxx later announced she was ending her office’s tradition of cutting prosecutors’ necktimes after they won their first case, saying it might be based on racism and lynching.
