Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot responded to a spate of shootings targeting three law enforcement officers in the last week with her most outspoken attack on criminal court judges. Lightfoot has repeatedly responded to gang violence by alternately targeting State's Attorney Kim Foxx and Tim Evans, chief judge of the Cook County Circuit Court system. Hours after a Chicago police officer was released from the hospital after being shot on duty, Lightfoot seemingly let Foxx off the hook and unleashed her anger an frustration on judges, reports the Chicago Sun-Times.
Lightfoot said the officials need to keep pressuring criminal court judges to "lock up dangerous, violent people and not put them out on bail or electronic monitoring back into the very same communities." She said that not locking up dangerous people undermines public safety, brings no justice to victims, and undermines the legitimacy of the courts. If the judges do what the mayor is calling action for, Lightfoot said, there will be a "significant drop" of violence She believes that violent people with a criminal record are "a danger to the community and should be held pre-trial." In response to the mayor Cook County public defender Sharone Mitchell Jr. said Monday, "For decades, the city has shamefully disregarded the presumption of innocence - which applies to everyone. As an attorney, the mayor knows that the criminal justice system is not designed to decide guilty early in a case. In the long run, putting increasing numbers of people in jail while awaiting trial causes more harm to our communities."