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 lives, 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 gangbangers 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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“… using handguns equipped with “switches” that made the weapons fully automatic…”
Sounds like the ATF could step in and charge them. They’d probably get more time than they would on the felony murder rule.
That would be too logical and the ATF seems to never go after Chicago Gang members despite their many gun law violations. If the news media are reporting accurately it sounds like the gang acquired some of the Chinese “airsoft” Glock selector knobs that were on the Internet earlier this year and the,ATF were actively pursuing white people who bought them
I may need to revisit your video access.
I would reply with the cheesy grin emoji, but we all know how you hate violence.
You mean this one?
Yeah, that’s the one. Walked right into it, I did.
We’re square now.
This and every other prosecution administration in chicago routinely charges aggravated discharge of a firearm. The whole point of the criminal statute is that it is just inherently dangerous to shoot off your gun in the street. Mutual combat is entirely irrelevant to that charge. The lack of charges at all in this case is beyond confusing.
Clarifying question, which perhaps only an Illinois Attorney could answer: Why would the ‘Jack Boys’ be charged with anything if the scenario went down as described? If I were, say, a resident of Hyde Park, and someone drove up to my house and mounted an assault by fire, would I not be legally justified in returning fire to protect my life and property?
I’m sure some lawyer would be happy to answer your question at Avvo’s free lawyer Q&A. Have fun!
“(a) A person commits aggravated discharge of a firearm when he or she knowingly or intentionally: (1) Discharges a firearm at or into a building he or she knows or reasonably should know to be occupied and the firearm is discharged from a place or position outside that building;”
720 ILCS 5/24-1.2
That’s a class 1 felony (four to fifteen years).
Much as I appreciate your kindness in providing Jake with actual information, this just encourages non-lawyers to ask stupid questions on a law blog where they shouldn’t be wasting my bandwidth with comments at all. Please don’t do that on my blawg.
“but allowing free shootouts on the street is not a future most people will support”
For principled old school liberals maybe. For many on either side of them it may depend on the street. Just keep it off of theirs. /notsnark
Hell, in Tombstone and Dodge City you have to pay at a dedicated venue just for the reenactments.
Sounds like 2020’s Chicago may not be that much different than 1920’s Chicago. Nobody was charged when gangsters shot each other back then either.
Recall that one of the major claims of the progressive movement is that we have an over-incarceration problem. If the gang members are free to murder each other, then not only are the killers not put in prison, but the victims, who in mutual combat were also would-be murderers and as gang members very likely committed other crimes, aren’t in prison either. De-carcerating two birds with one stone.
This woman has always seemed a bit developmentally challenged. In terms of maintaining any semblance of public order, this decision doesn’t work. Also, at least the way the press is putting it out there (which could be incomplete and wrong), this makes it look like she is taking sides in a gang war. That’s a stupid and dangerous posture for any DA. If the other gangs think she’s on a payroll, they really can’t afford to leave that. The feds are likely to be raising an eyebrow over this too. At this point, it’s really just looking like a question which way the lightning will come.
Considering the Chicago Sun Times has a well-deserved reputation of being little better than a tabloid, one could check if the newspaper of record, the Chicago Tribune, has released a story. They have, dated 8 October 2021 at 6:07 PM, and lo and behold the story is far more complex:
“For one, the investigation of the shooting in question is not over, a point that seemed lost in the exchange of political rhetoric over the past several days. And there were specific case details that made filing charges difficult, authorities said, including a city camera that while it captured the shooting, was not pointed directly at the gunmen, at least some of whom who were masked.
Before the week was over, Cook County prosecutor Kim Foxx had fired back at Lightfoot, calling a news conference to say she would not be forced to turn back the clock because of political pressure or escalating fear as violence rages.
“As an elected official I cannot operate under a premise that anything goes in a time of crisis. We did that in the ‘80s and the ‘90s, and we’re paying for that today with wrongful convictions that are being overturned, postconvictions that you all write about every day,” Foxx said. “ … We are and have been the source of the most wrongful convictions in the country … We cannot cut corners. We cannot play games. We must operate as the professionals that we are.””
Kim Foxx is worried about wrongful convictions, claiming Chicago Police jumped the gun in seeking charges prior to completing the investigation. This would seem to be behavior that criminal defense lawyers would applaud, but one must be mistaken.
The Tribune article goes on with a discourse about Illinois’ Felony Murder Statue, that was significantly narrowed last year and precludes such a charge applying to the shooters from the street according to the article.
Also, “mutual combat” in Illinois criminal law according to Chicago defense lawyer David L. Freidberg’s posting is synonymous with self-defense:
“Mutual combat can be seen as another version of “self-defense” used in most cases when the alleged victim is proven to be the actual aggressor in the confrontation.
A mutual combat defense to a charge of battery or murder may be upheld in most jurisdictions to mitigate the sentence, if the defendant did not instigate the quarrel in the first place. Some jurisdictions restrict this defense to cases where a deadly weapon is used by the alleged “victim” and the defendant was defending himself against the original assault and battery. However, the Illinois Appellate Court has held that a disproportionate reaction (deadly force) to a provocation negates a mutual combat defense when it is shown that the defendant’s reactions to an argument escalates to a point where that defendant uses deadly force against the original aggressor. See the People vs. Thompson, 821 N.E.2d 664 (Ill.App.Ct. 2004)”
Where was Devlin Addison again, according to the Chicago Tribune?
“It was midmorning on a Friday when two Dodge Chargers twice circled the 1200 block of North Mason Avenue. At least three people then got out and opened fire in the direction of a house there.
Those inside returned fire. Killed in the exchange was Devlin Addison, who, according to a preliminary police report was with the group that opened fire from the street.”
Could it be Kim Foxx is actually familiar with the statutes she is charged with enforcing, and the associated caselaw? Could she be indicating that because the defense lawyers of the shooter(s) that killed Addison can mount an affirmative defense through Mutual Combat caselaw that she must decline murder charges?
First, thank you for your brevity compared to your usual ridiculously lengthy, though usually idiotic, comments. I see you’re trying to be more concise since you’re such a crashing bore.
Second, most people intuitively grasp that it’s impossible to refer to an article that didn’t yet exist at the time a post was written. Others need it explained in small words.
Third, the issue isn’t who gets charged with what, but that nobody was charged and everybody was released.
Fourth, yet again, you’ve contributed nothing remotely reflecting rational thought. May god have mercy on your soul.