West Cook News

Retired Riverside police chief Thomas Weitzel is criticizing Chicago Tribune City Hall reporter Gregory Pratt over his support for Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx.

“This Twitter post is absurd,” Weitzel said in a Twitter post this week. “Mr. Pratt has no concept of what’s happening with the beat officers at CPD, let alone police officers throughout Illinois. Smarter on crime – her policies were so bad her staff fled- he just wanted to get the first interview -what a disservice -”

Weitzel's tweet was in response to Pratt giving Foxx a glowing send-off after she noted her intent to retire from the office at the end of her current term.

“Foxx is a trailblazer in national movement to elect reform prosecutors who emphasize need to change the criminal justice system and address its wrongs from within,” Pratt tweeted. “She ushered in a new era of criminal justice where candidates talk about being smarter on crime, not just tougher.”

The Chicago City Wire uncovered that Foxx provided monetary donations to Pratt, who received $1,790 in donations from sources he covers as part of a GoFundMe.com fundraiser.

Pratt was listed as the lead reporter on the “exclusive” interview in which Foxx made her announcement.

“If nothing else, I have spent the last six and a half years trying to tell the difficult truth about our criminal justice system, about the prosecutor’s office, about law enforcement and the impact that it has had on communities that are the ones most impacted by violent crime and by our justice system,” Foxx told Pratt in a Tribune report this week.

Foxx was dubbed by former attorney general candidate Tom DeVore as a silent partner of Attorney General Kwame Raoul in non-prosecution, a September Chicago City Wire report stated. She dropped charges against 30% of the county's criminal defendants during her first three years as Cook County state's attorney

Foxx's judgment has also been questioned by other officials.

Cook County Commissioner Sean Morrison (R-Palos Park) lambasted Foxx after a man recently charged with shooting a guard on a train was eligible to get out of jail on bail.

"Arrested previously 32 times, four were violent felonies," Morrison said in a Facebook post, quoted by the North Cook News. "Shoots a guard on a train, but is Now eligible to get out again on cash bail, because the states Attorneys did NOT request he be held with no bail! 'See the Pattern???'"

Former federal prosecutor Tom Hogan listed Foxx as one of the worst prosecutors in the country, a 2022 Chicago City Wire report stated. In a City Journal article, Hogan cited one gang shootout in which one individual was killed. Foxx initially refused to bring any charges but later conceded to only charging gang members with aggravated unlawful use of a weapon.