Kim Foxx says Lori Lightfoot ‘wrong’ to publicly discuss deadly shootout, says

Facing heavy criticism after her office rejected charges against five suspects in a deadly shootout in Austin, Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx on Tuesday slammed Mayor Lori Lightfoot for raising alarms about the case and said the mayor had her facts wrong.

But a short time later, Lightfoot brushed off Foxx’s claims and announced that she’d effectively circumvented her by asking U.S. Attorney John Lausch to review the evidence in the gang-related gunfight Friday morning in Austin that left one shooter dead and two suspects wounded.

“I’ve also reached out to the U.S. attorney to ask him to also evaluate the evidence that was there to see if there’s a possibility for federal charges,” Lightfoot told reporters.

The dueling press conferences reveal the stark division between Lightfoot, a former federal prosecutor herself, and the county’s top law enforcement official over what evidence is needed to prosecute the suspects Chicago police had hoped Foxx would charge with first-degree murder and aggravated battery.

“Whatever evidence that needs to be gathered, the police department is going to be Johnny on the spot and make sure we get it,” Lightfoot after she appeared in Pilsen with U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Marcia Fudge at an unrelated event. “But this is, to me, a very compelling case.”

Pat Nabong/Sun-Times

On Tuesday morning, Foxx had told reporters that it was “wrong” for Lightfoot to publicly discuss details of the high-profile case, alleging that some of the mayor’s previous statements about the evidence “simply weren’t true.”

“I was quite honestly mortified by what happened yesterday, particularly because the mayor as a former prosecutor knows that what she did yesterday was inappropriate,” Foxx said during her news conference in Englewood.

The rebuke came after Lightfoot and five West Side City Council members voiced concerns Monday about the blanket rejection in the case and urged Foxx to at least reconsider charging two of the alleged instigators.

Though Foxx wouldn’t say what she believes Lightfoot got wrong, she noted that Chief of Detectives Brendan Deenihan conceded during a budget hearing Monday that the evidence was insufficient to bring the charges against the five members of warring factions of the Four Corner Hustlers street gang.

Deenihan also acknowledged that police video footage doesn’t clearly show some of the shooters, and that none of those arrested were willing to cooperate with investigators. Asked about those comments Tuesday, Lightfoot said she planned to speak to Deenihan directly and insisted that his boss, Supt. David Brown, “does not agree with a no charging decision.”

The state’s attorney’s office previously told the Sun-Times that the “evidence was insufficient to meet our burden of proof to approve felony…