Judge Pat O’Brien Urges Solutions to End Tragic Violence

Cook County States Attorney Candidate Judge Pat O’Brien criticizes incumbent Kim Foxx for failing to provide relief to the surge in violence in Cook County and especially in Chicago.

After a violent Fourth of July weekend where 79 people were shot and 15 killed, including a 7-year-old girl who was visiting her grandmother to celebrate the holiday, Judge Pat O’Brien met with reporters to offer sympathies to the victims of crime and express urgency that something be done to stem the tide of increasingly deadly violence on the Streets of Cook County.

In just six months, 329 people have been murdered in Chicago alone, and the city is on track to see 600 innocent lives or more come to an untimely end due to tragic gun violence.
“With another tragic weekend to reflect upon, it is clear we have unchecked violence on our streets and now is not a time to do nothing, complacency will cost lives.

Attorney Pat O'Brien announced his candidacy for the Republican Nomination for Cook County State's Attorney on Sept. 3, 2019 — Attorney Pat O’Brien announced his candidacy for the Republican Nomination for Cook County State’s Attorney on Sept. 3, 2019

We must stop this violence immediately. Superintendent Brown and Mayor Lightfoot are being stonewalled as Chicago Police arrest violent offenders, only to see them back out on the streets days or even hours later.

While gangs, guns, and drugs plague Cook County, Kim Foxx was out of the office from mid-March through May 31. While our streets were burning and people were looting — Kim Foxx decided that Cook County’s Chief Law Enforcement Officer should hide in her home, while other officials were on the front-lines dealing with our city’s problems.

It’s unacceptable that Kim Foxx can’t recognize the victim of a crime from the defendant who commits the crime. Kim Foxx doesn’t deserve to be Cook County State’s Attorney. The office requires a leader and an individual who can identify problems and come up with and execute a plan to fix those problems. When I’m State’s Attorney, I will start a Rackets Unit to combine Assistant State’s Attorneys with experience handling murder, gun, and drug cases, into 30-units located throughout the county to target these violent crimes.

The streets of Chicago are running with blood, innocents are being slaughtered, and our State’s Attorney is nowhere to be found. We cannot let Superintendent Brown and the police handle this alone; additional officers won’t stem the violence. They need support from the State’s Attorney’s office, and I will be the State’s Attorney to support and deliver in helping end the violence plaguing our county.”

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Ray Hanania is an award-winning opinion columnist, author & former Chicago City Hall reporter (1977-1992). A veteran who served during the Vietnam War and the recipient of four SPJ Peter Lisagor Awards for column writing, Hanania writes weekly opinion columns on mainstream American & Chicagoland topics for the Southwest News-Herald, Des Plaines Valley News, the Regional News, The Reporter Newspapers, and Suburban Chicagoland.

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Hanania was named "Best Ethnic American Columnist" by the New America Media in November 2007, and is the 2009 recipient of the SPJ National Sigma Delta Chi Award for column writing.

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