For several months now, I’ve kind of been planning to vote in the Republican primary here in Illinois, just so I can vote against Donald Trump. As the day finally approached, however, I gave it a little more thought and realized there was a better way to use my vote. (It may not be worth much, but I might as well maximize its impact.)
While the Presidential elections have been getting all the news coverage, a different election has been attracting attention here in Chicago. That’s the vote to replace Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez, a movement that has grown massively, ever since the video from the LaQuan McDonald shooting by a police officer was released to the public in November.
This seems to have been driven on the ground by a mostly grass roots movement (except for support from a few key criminal justice reform supporters) led by a collection of mostly black community organizations like Black Youth Project 100, Assata’s Daughters, and Black Lives Matter Chicago, although I get most of my news about if from following Prison Culture. I can’t go an hour on Twitter without seeing the #ByeAnita hashtag floating across my screen. Especially on this election day.
To be honest, I don’t think Anita Alvarez is the sole reason police in Cook County seem to be getting away with murder. It’s a nationwide issue, and I doubt Alvarez is much worse in that respect than many other chief prosecutors. But the folks running the #ByeAnita campaign decided to make sure that she faces the consequences nonetheless.
And she will.
Chicago’s a totally corrupt third world hellhole. It doesn’t matter if Foxx wins or if Prickwrinkle resigns. Most people in Illinois live off benefits! Therefore as long as politicos promise to pay them, no problem, right?!
I’m fine with sending incumbents packing, but this particular one shows the idiocy of so many of these twitter groups.
The last time Alvarez prosecuted a police officer, the judge threw the case out because she didn’t get the charges 100% perfectly exactly right. The court system told the state’s attorneys that in order to convict a police officer they must meet an impossibly high standard. An intelligent person would conclude that it would take the state’s attorney a loooong time to come up with the 100% exactly correct charges needed to convict McDonald’s killer. The judge in that case brought the prosecutor down long before these half-assed groups did.