A veteran Chicago prosecutor has quit with a blistering letter over soaring crime in the Democrat city which has left his five-year-old son hearing regular gunfire.
Jason Poje, formerly of Cook County State Attorney’s Office, warned that the Windy City was ‘on a course to disaster’ after a series of failed woke policies.
He slammed bond reform which means dangerous crooks are released onto the streets, shorter parole periods, soft sentences for repeat offenders and the unnecessary prosecution of cops.
The latest figures show that crime has rocketed by 58 percent since Mayor Lori Lightfoot took over the blood-soaked city. Murder is up 11 percent, robbery has spiked by a third and vehicle theft has surged 237 percent since 2019.
‘Many years ago my family found a nice quiet corner of the suburbs. Now my son, who is only 5, hears gunfire while playing at our neighborhood park, and a drug dealer is open-air selling behind my house (the second one in two years),’ Poje wrote in the letter obtained by The Chicago Contrarian.
The latest figures show that crime has rocketed by 58 percent since Mayor Lori Lightfoot took over the blood-soaked city. Murder is up 11 percent, robbery has spiked by a third and vehicle theft has surged 237 percent since 2019
The most recent crime figures show that in the year to date overall crime is up by 43 percent. While murder is down 14 percent in the year to date, it has increased by 11 percent since Mayor Lori Lightfoot took office in 2019
‘I will not raise my son here. I am fortunate enough to have the means to escape, so my entire family is leaving the State of Illinois. I grew up here, my family and friends are here, and yet my own employer has turned it into a place from which I am no longer proud to be, and in which my son is not safe.’
Poje outlined a series of ‘so-called reforms’ backed by Lightfoot and Illinois Governor J. B. Pritzker which he said had inevitably led to more crime.
‘The worst part is that the agency for whom I work has backed literally every policy change that has the predictable, and predicted, outcome of more crime and more people getting hurt,’ he wrote.
‘Bond reform designed to make sure no one stays in jail while their cases are pending with no safety net to handle more criminals on the streets, shorter parole periods, lower sentences for repeat offenders, the malicious and unnecessary prosecution of law enforcement officers, the overuse of diversion programs, intentionally not pursuing prosecutions for crimes lawfully on the books after being passed by our legislature and signed by a governor, all of the so-called reforms have had a direct negative impact, with consequences that will last for a generation.’
The excoriating letter did not name his former boss, Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx, by name but referred to the ‘stupid State’s Attorney policies.’
Poje, who served residents of the county for 20 years, was described by one former colleague as ‘one of the hardest working men I have ever worked with.’
He expressed regret that he was unable to continue working with his colleagues who were ‘in the trenches’ but said the safety of his family had to come first.
‘If it were just me to consider, I’d stick it out. I’ve been through enough stupid State’s Attorney policies before. But this Office’s complete failure to even think for a moment before rushing into one popular political agenda after another has put my family directly in harm’s way,’ he wrote.
Chicago police work the scene following a police involved shooting in the 3800 block of W. Flournoy on Saturday, April 15, 2023, in Chicago
The excoriating letter did not name his former boss, Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx (pictured), by name but referred to the ‘stupid State’s Attorney policies.’
Poje said that it was a fundamental principle of the criminal justice system that ‘both sides vigorously defend their positions’ to create a balance between protecting rights and maintaining law and order.
‘Once we start doing too much of the defense’s job, once we pull our punches, once we decide it’s worth risking citizens’ lives to have a little social experiment, that balance is lost,’ he said.
‘The unavoidable consequences are what we are witnessing in real time, an increase in crime of all kinds, businesses and families pulling up the stakes, and the bodies piling up; the whole time with a State’s Attorney who insists there is nothing to see here, and if there is, it must be someone else’s fault.’
Poje, who is now working at a law firm in Madison, Wisconsin, signed off the letter by wishing his former colleagues well.
‘To everyone in the trenches in the State’s Attorney’s Office and in law enforcement, my one regret is that I cannot be at your side anymore as you continue to fight to good fight. I do not envy the task you have before you, but you have my utmost respect for carrying on. I hope one day you are successful at returning some kind of common sense and security to our communities,’ he wrote.
His exit comes less than a year after another Cook County prosecutor, Jim Murphy, resigned in protest at Foxx’s leadership.
‘I wish I could stay,’ he wrote in July 2022. ‘However, I can no longer work for this Administration. I have zero confidence in leadership.’
DailyMail
