Chicago Sun Times Editorial Board Exalts Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx’s, COPA’s Holy War Against the Chicago Police Department

January 2 Sun Times editorial pays tribute to contorted justice, foments anti-police delirium.

Shortly after 4:30 a.m. on December 26, 2015, Chicago police officers responding to a domestic disturbance call arrived at 4710 West Erie Street in the West Garfield Park neighborhood. Within minutes, Officers Robert Rialmo and Anthony LaPalermo approached the front steps of the residence where Rialmo shot dead 19-year-old Quintonio LeGrier, who had threatened officers with a baseball bat after appearing in the entrance of the home. Regrettably, Ms. Bettie Jones, a 55-year-old resident of the same home, was accidentally killed in the brief burst of gunfire.

Cleared of wrongdoing by two formal inquiries, one performed by the department and a second conducted by the now-disbanded Independent Police Review Authority (IPRA), Rialmo now faces dismissal following the conclusions of the emergent Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA) charged with reviewing the matter. Over and above two independent analyses absolving Rialmo of malfeasance, data collected by watchdog group Citizens Police Data Project (CPDP) attests Rialmo boasted an impeccable service record prior to the LeGrier incident. It is also interesting to note Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx declined to pursue charges against Rialmo. Despite an abundance of evidence harvested by expert law enforcement officials with the Chicago Police Department and no evidence to support Rialmo or any police officer at the scene filed a false report or offered false statements, COPA has resolved to oust Rialmo from the force. An organ which inherited IPRA’s responsibilities, this self-governing panel functions with both sweeping power and minimum guiding principles to review alleged police misconduct. Officer Rialmo’s fate now rests with Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson.

To the fantasists seated on the Sun Times Editorial Board, only the Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA) drew a morally good, proper conclusion.

In what should be a humiliating stain for revealing an immeasurable animus for police, the Chicago Sun Times Editorial Board seizes on the tragic deaths of two Chicago residents, one of which was accidental, to make an explicit case for a politicized war on the Chicago Police Department. A new low even for the crude journalistic standards under which the Sun Times operates, the very heart of this editorial is a bawl to COPA and Kim Foxx to grind forward with an all-out legal offensive against police and to inspire public confidence in their work. Vast, seemingly boundless ignorance, this editorial also serves as a glowing profile of COPA’s and Foxx’s service targeting police by romanticizing both as hallowed defenders of justice with the rare courage to halt the expanding threat of “systemic police violence.” Rather than merely heap praise on COPA, Foxx, or simply inveigh against police, the Sun Times’ editorial also seeks to use Quintonio LeGrier’s death to sustain momentum for the tired, old anti-gun crusade, summon for limits on law enforcement’s rules of engagement, and join the misguided movement calling for the disarmament of police. Obscene to the point of anathema, the Sun Times attempts to fulfill all of its objectives by echoing COPA’s absurd inference Officer Rialmo murdered Quintonio LeGrier in cold blood.

“Crimefightin’ Kim” Foxx is a ticking time bomb.

Outside of its genuflect to COPA, equally disturbing is the “atta girl” acclaim the Sun Times extends to “Crimefightin’ Kim” Foxx. Upon entering office, the embittered Foxx set out on a deeply-personal quest to prosecute as many police officers imaginable. A spectacular failure at indicting officers on personal whim, in a flagrant attempt to outmaneuver truth and equity, Foxx has altered her bearings and embarked on an end-around against both police and the courts to attain her brand of “justice” by impulsively issuing reprieves and emptying Cook County jails of violent felons. An irresponsible and irrational gesture, Foxx is hastily transforming her office into an improvisation by actively working to circumvent already loose restrictions which wrestle to keep brutal felons behind bars. Although Foxx habitually insists her methods will “restore faith” in her office, a mass exodus of antagonists from Cook County jails is certain to amplify mass antagonism on Chicago’s streets. However, for all her blundering and scheming, Foxx receives a round of applause from her cheerleaders at the Sun Times. If Foxx thinks life on Chicago’s streets is too tough now, she should brace herself for the moment in which her actions of returning violent felons to the streets culminate in greetings from an enfeebled or disarmed police force.

Who would members of the Chicago Sun Times Editorial Board prefer as a next-door neighbor? Officer Robert Rialmo or Quintonio LeGrier?

The purposes of an editorial are manifold. Editorials break down and clarify complex issues; they comment on important subjects; they reconcile conflicting or controversial positions; and they frame positions with hard, uncontested facts. A stand in for journalism, this Sun Times’ editorial is neither an intelligent nor rigorous examination of a matter of great importance. On the contrary, the words appearing in its op-ed page were a cheap attempt to posture morals and blithely assume all police are half-crazed and a danger to the community.

That the Sun Times printed this editorial is altogether surprising: Despite its established reputation for endlessly bemoaning Chicago’s sprawling, oppressive, and dysfunctional government, the daily’s editorial board abruptly pivots and ballyhoos COPA, a weaponized bureaucracy which has no known oversight and which is broadly empowered to outflank police. For a newspaper which often repeats the popular memes, “accountability” and “transparency,” and rails against bureaucratic sleaze and government run amok, it is peculiar the Times now finds excellence with a government agency staffed with social workers armed with law degrees, loose cannons, and anti-police ideologues. Against this, however, COPA’s unique purpose is to hector the Chicago Police Department. If Chicago police officers are in a frenzy over COPA’s licensed overreach, wait until this flourishing monstrosity balloons into the corrupt bureaucratic leviathan it was conceived to be.

A newspaper never known for influencing national political discourse or earthshattering exposés, the Chicago Sun Times’ reputation has been lying in ashes for decades. Never a great newspaper but once a readable one, the daily has not claimed ownership of a distinguished journalist since the venerable Mike Royko fled to the Tribune in 1984 and now counts sensationalism and pop culture as hard-hitting news. Moreover, in another example of the paper’s rank hypocrisy, it cheerfully accepts advertisement from businesses which specialize in the sale of firearms, despite the supposed “wisdom” of its editorial board long favoring tighter gun laws. With subscribers retreating in droves, the Sun Times Editorial Board may be best served to take a moment for introspection and carefully re-consider using its editorial page as a vehicle to bellow Left-wing groupthink or advance outrageous slanders against the Chicago Police Department.

A fascinating example of how political bias distorts objectivity and reasoning, this editorial praising COPA and “Crimefightin’ Kim” Foxx as the cavalry coming to rescue of the justice system represents political ideology leading to blindness and a descent into madness.

[Chicago Sun Times] [Citizens Police Data Project] [Photo courtesy Getty/WSJ]