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Foxx: Special prosecutor not needed to charge cops in shootings

As her primary rival took heat over the handling of the Laquan McDonald shooting case, Cook County State's Attorney candidate Kim Foxx pledged that she would ask for a special prosecutor to investigate all police shootings.

After a little more than 100 days on the job, Foxx said she has learned that farming out cases to special prosecutors is harder than it looks. Since Foxx was sworn in in December, the State's Attorney's Office has charged two law enforcement officers with murder in connection with fatal shootings, but neither case was handled by a special prosecutor. In all, seven people have been shot - five fatally - by police officers in Cook County so far this year, according to a Chicago Sun-Times database.

Foxx said those charges were filed within weeks of the shootings, not the year-plus wait between when McDonald was shot 16 times and when Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez announced first-degree murder charges against CPD officer Jason Van Dyke. After losing to Foxx in the primary, two-term incumbent Alvarez turned the case against Van Dyke over to a special prosecutor. On Wednesday, Foxx said the outside prosecutor was necessary because of the public outcry over the way Alvarez had handled the case.

"The issue has always been, and the big issue was, as it relates to [Alvarez], it took 13 months in the Laquan McDonald case to make a decision whether or not to file or not file," Foxx told the Chicago Sun-Times' Editorial Board on Wednesday.

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