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The decision to drop felony charges against the actor, Magats emphasized, was not an exoneration.
But the charges were eventually reinstated.
The concept of saying no to a slam-dunk conviction was unthinkable as recently as 2012.
Quite the opposite: Law-enforcement officials in Cook County often trampled ethical and legal boundaries to secure them.
A60 Minutessegment from that year documented a pattern of coercive interrogation methods used by the Chicago police.
Two instances from the 1990s had landed several teenage boys in prison for rapes and murders they didnt commit.
It was an outlandish theory, but it didnt shock anyone who knew her.
Alvarez had a reputation as a ruthless prosecutor and an unscrupulous advocate for the police.
Her unwillingness to apply the law to cops did her in.
She charged multiple civilians with felony wiretapping for recording interactions with the Chicago police.
Foxx beat Alvarez in a landslide in the primary and was elected that fall.
Chicago police, who had gotten used to impunity, were predictably upset.
By January 2019, Foxx had made good on many of her campaign promises and overseen dips in crime.
Under her stated rubric, these people werent serious threats to public safety.
It was all the opportunity her opponents needed.
Chicago cops staged streetprotestsagainst Foxx, and the FOP called on her to resign.
The backlash was transpartisan.
The fallout from that incident catalyzed his decision not to run for reelection.
But after the outcry, she asked for an independent investigation into her offices handling of it.
It was also the centerpiece of the unsuccessful campaigns in 2020 to oust her.
(She won reelection anyway.)
This was always the point, of course.
Jussie Smollett was just them getting lucky.
