Is there some progressive rationale for the decision made by Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx not to charge the young men who engaged in a shootout on the streets of Chicago? The only explanation proffered thus far is that they were “mutual combatants,” apparently meaning that they all chose to engage in a shootout with each other. Is that a defense to murder?
The brazen mid-morning gunfight, which left one shooter dead and two of the suspects wounded, stemmed from an internal dispute between two factions of the Four Corner Hustlers street gang, according to an internal police report and a law enforcement source with knowledge of the investigation.
There is some history behind treating gang warfare differently than other types of violence, the tacit understanding being that if they want to kill each other, let them and the good people are better off for it. It’s unsavory argument, human lives being human lies, but it’s one that defense lawyers regularly made when a client was charged with murder of, say, a competing violent drug dealer. But that was an argument in mitigation, not a defense.
About 10:30 a.m., two Dodge Chargers driven by members of the Body Snatchers faction of the Four Corner Hustlers drove to the 1200 block of North Mason Avenue and exchanged words with members of the gang’s Jack Boys set, according to the source and the police report.
After circling the block and coming back, at least three individuals jumped out of the Chargers and began to shoot into a brick house using handguns equipped with “switches” that made the weapons fully automatic, noted the source and report. Members of the Jack Boys who were inside the home then began firing back.
Two of the Body Snatchers were left wounded, including an unidentified 32-year-old man who was later pronounced dead at a hospital, according to the report and the Cook County medical examiner’s office. A 29-year-old man aligned with the Jack Boys was also struck.
A shootout like this would ordinarily be a pretty big deal. That a city can’t turn a blind eye to open warfare, whether the gang designations are as accurate as police would have us believe, seems fairly obvious. And that the consequences of such a “brazen” shootout for others, the likelihood of others, from neighbors to children, being struck, killed, by stray bullets strongly militates against letting gangbanges kill each other, if that’s what they feel compelled to do.
You just don’t let shootouts happen. Or do you?
The gunfight, which was caught on a police POD camera, came to a halt when a police cruiser pulled up to the block, according to the report and the source. The Body Snatchers then fled in the Chargers, leaving their fatally wounded accomplice behind.
One of the cars was later “found engulfed in flames nearby,” the report states. The other was used to drop off the non-fatal gunshot victim at West Suburban Medical Center in Oak Park, where it was later spotted by local police.
The cops did their job, driving toward the shooting and finding the people involved, alive, wounded and dead.
Those affiliated with the Jack Boys, meanwhile, refused to leave the home on Mason, causing a standoff that required a SWAT team to respond, the source said.
Contrary to popular belief, there are times when a SWAT team fulfills a purpose. This was one of those times.
Police looked to charge three Jack Boys who were eventually taken into custody, including the man who was shot, the source said. Investigators also sought charges against two members of the Body Snatchers — the driver who crashed the Charger and the 20-year-old man he took to West Suburban.
Detectives wanted to charge the Body Snatchers affiliates with the killing of their slain accomplice under Illinois’ controversial felony murder rule, which allows a defendant to be convicted of first-degree murder if they commit certain felonies that ultimately lead to another person’s death.
But as the opening to Law & Order has taught a generation of broadcast TV watchers, the police are only one part of the team.
In the Criminal Justice System, the people are represented by two separate, yet equally important groups: The police who investigate crime, and the District Attorneys who prosecute the offenders.
The cops don’t get to decide who gets prosecuted for what. That’s the prosecutor’s job. And Kim Foxx, the progressive prosecutor of Cook County, made her decision.
In a statement later Sunday, Cristina Villareal, a spokeswoman for the Cook County state’s attorney’s office, explained that prosecutors had “determined that the evidence was insufficient to meet our burden of proof to approve felony charges.” Police officials agreed with the decision, Villareal added.
That can happen, that as much as they know bad things happened, they lack the evidence needed to prosecute any particular person for having committed the crime. But there was more.
But the report also framed the state’s attorney’s office’s decision to decline charges in a different light: “Mutual combatants was cited as the reason for the rejection.” Mutual combat is a legal term used to define a fight or struggle that two parties willingly engage in.
Mutual combatants refers to two or more individuals who intentionally and consensually engage in a fair fight. It’s not unusual to apply the concept to a couple of guys beating each other up, the old “duke it out” before “hug it out” became the less painful way of settling differences. Is that what happened here? Does that apply to shootouts on the streets of Chicago? As Mayor Lori Lightfoot said, this “could send a dangerous message as the city grapples with a continued surge in violent crime.”
Maybe that is the message, that warring gangs are free to choose to thin the herd among themselves without fear of legal peril? If not, Foxx’s decision not to prosecute would appear to be wholly inexplicable. Perhaps there is some progressive tenet that eludes me, but allowing free shootouts on the street is not a future most people will support, mutual combatants or not.
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