After a very-public conflict over the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office’s decision not to charge five individuals in a deadly gang shooting over the weekend, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot and State’s Attorney Kim Foxx met at City Hall on Thursday.
That meeting comes after many officials, residents and community leaders called for the two officials to try to work out their differences.
Rev. Jesse Jackson spoke out about the contentious situation between the two officials on Thursday, saying that he hoped that the leaders would be able to resolve their differences and to tackle the growing problem of gun violence in the city.
“They’re talking past each other,” he said. “Both are good people. Kim is doing her work. The mayor’s doing her work. Let’s talk it out in private, not in public. It just creates more division within the city.”
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Lightfoot and Foxx have been at odds over the decision by Foxx’s office not to pursue charges in a fatal gang shooting that took place last week.
In the shooting, members of a gang faction began to shoot into a residence in an effort to lure out or injure members of a rival gang, according to police.
In the end, one person was killed and two others were injured in the incident, which was witnessed by uniformed officers in a marked police vehicle. Officials believe that the incident was largely captured on body-worn cameras.
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Foxx’s office determined that “evidence was insufficient to meet the burden of proof to approve felony charges,” and five individuals who had been in custody were released. Foxx’s office also said that witnesses were uncooperative in the case, further hampering the investigation.
In the aftermath of that decision, Lightfoot, along with five Chicago aldermen, released a letter Monday, voicing their disagreements with the process.
“They shoot up a residence in broad daylight, and there’s no consequences,” the mayor said. “We have to understand how it’s possible, when this kind of shootout is captured on film, that there are no charges of any person.”
In a press conference Tuesday, Foxx responded forcefully.
“Our job is not only an arrest but also to get a conviction,” she said. “Discussing the facts of this case in the press without the benefit of all of the evidence does nothing but disservice.”
Foxx says that as a former prosecutor, Lightfoot should be more sensitive to the demands of the office, and that she was disappointed with the mayor’s remarks.
“I was quite honestly mortified by what happened yesterday, particularly because the mayor, as a former prosecutor, knows that what she did yesterday was inappropriate,” Foxx said.
The mayor’s office has not yet released a statement on her meeting with Foxx.
