Cook County state’s attorney Kim Foxx tried (and failed) to limit the damage from the repudiation and demands for her resignation she suffered on Thursday, when (via the Sun-Times):

Resign.

That was the message a host of officials from police departments across Cook County delivered to Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx Thursday in an escalating face-off between the county’s top prosecutor and the cops   who work hand-in-hand with her office.

The 40 or so chiefs on other police officials — who gathered at the Chicago Police Department’s union hall and represent dozens of municipalities in the county — pointed to the abrupt end of the Jussie Smollett prosecution and a perceived failure to bring and uphold criminal charges in other cases as some of their main reasons for demanding Foxx step down.

Of course, her scheme was to racialize the issue by featuring a group of black suburban police chiefs to express support for her, in an event planned for Saturday. With (who else?) Jesse Jackson. One small problem: no black police chiefs showed up. CWBChicago reports:

Chicago media gathered at Rainbow PUSH headquarters in Kenwood on Saturday morning for what was supposed to be a rally for Kim Foxx featuring “south suburban African American police chiefs.”

 

Well, as it turns out, there were no black suburban police chiefs at today's Kim Foxx press conference. Here's the media release that said the chiefs would be there. Not clear why none showed up. pic.twitter.com/0jagcDFCwX

— Nader Issa (@NaderDIssa) April 6, 2019

 

No uniforms in evidence (photo credit Nader Issa via CWB Chicago)

In an update, CWB reports that Foxx is claiming they met with her in secret!

A south suburban mayor states that Foxx met privately with a group of south suburban mayors and black police chiefs in Markham more than two hours before the Rainbow PUSH press conference. There’s no word on why the meeting took place separately or why suburban chiefs did not appear for the media availability as promoted.

I have a theory as to why the meeting was in secret: the black police chiefs want to retain the respect and support of the officers that they lead. They may fear retaliation from Jesse Jackson and Foxx, but they fear more a rebellion among their own men and women in blue.

One question I have is the degree to which Foxx’s well-known association with Toni Preckwinkle, the president of the Cook County board, affected Preckwinkle’s landslide loss  to Lori Lightfoot in the mayor’s race. Lightfoot got 74% of the vote, which is stunning, considering Preckwinkle’s visibility and former political power. A Chicago friend opines that the Foxx fiasco cost Preckwinkle a lot of votes, but that is only an impressionistic take. A poll would be very interesting.