Incumbent Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez has been waging a heated battle to retain her position this primary season.
Any election is tough, but Alvarez has had an especially challenging run since this past fall, as details of the Laquan McDonald shooting came to light, sparking vocal protests across the city, many calling for Alvarez's resignation after well over a year went by between McDonald's shooting and murder charges being filed against Chicago Police Officer Jason Van Dyke.
Among Alvarez's challengers are Kim Foxx, formerly the chief of staff to Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, and who has also received backing from the Cook County Democratic Party, and gaming attorney Donna Moore. But Alvarez says that, with 29 years of experience working in the State's Attorney's Office, she brings the most experience to the job.
Windy City Times spoke with Alvarez about gun crime, her relationship to the LGBT community, and what she's taken away from the events that have transpired since November.
Windy City Times: It has been a difficult several months, with many in Cook County calling for your resignation. But you have not only remained in office—you have pursued your re-election campaign. Why should voters pick you in the primary, and not Kim Foxx or Donna More?
Anita Alvarez: It has been a rough couple of months. When I started the campaign, I don't think anybody could foresee what has transpired since Thanksgiving.
Why should voters vote for me as opposed to my other opponents? Number one is my experience. I clearly have more experience than the both of them put together, in this office and running this office. I think what's important is that that the voters understand—and I think it's apparent based on all these politics—is that I'm not a politician. I'm a career prosecutor, and that's how I run this office. I always make by decisions based on the facts, the evidence and the law, and not because some politician told me to do this or do that. … I think the state's attorney needs to be independent of any political influence, and I've been that. I think that's apparent to the politicians, and that's why I'm not the endorsed candidate. That's why I'm not racking up all these political endorsements, which I didn't have in my first race anyway.
WCT: What progress has the office made between when you came in, and now?
AA: I got some unwarranted criticism as to whether I am reform-minded enough. An unbiased look at my record shows just the opposite. I was sworn in December 2008 and right away in 2009 we came up with something called the Offender Initiative Probation. It was a law that we wanted to change in Springfield, that of course we couldn't pass. So I said, forget it, I'll do it myself in Cook County. This was our Deferred Prosecution Program. … So we developed the program to divert those low-level offenders out. It saves them from their felony conviction. They complete the program, we dismiss the case and expunge it, so they avoid the conviction, because we all know what that does to you in so many ways. When I started, there were only eight different alternative sentencing programs available, and now I have 32 different programs to divert people out of the system. Last year we had 5,400 people who were in some type of program. I think that's tremendous, and we're giving people a second chance.
I think we need to be smart on crime. I think we need to focus on the violence. I have my ideas for when it comes to gun violence and we can, on the front-end, help those people who need a second chance get a second chance to keep them out of the system.
WCT: So how do we deal with the gun violence?
AA: I have been an advocate and a proponent—I've tried in Springfield and haven't passed it—of strengthening our gun laws. We're talking about the illegal guns. We are talking about gang members out on the streets with guns. If you get picked up on a gun case, you get a UW—unlawful use of a weapon—a year is the bottom. You don't do a year. You're in and out in about three months, in and back out on the street. What we've seen, and we've been tracking those cases, is that these people are coming right back into the system, and they are not necessarily coming back in just on a possession-of-a-gun case—it's often armed robberies, attempted murders, murder. There's research that's been done that says that 63 percent of gun offenders re-offend within a year.
So they are coming right back in. But what does that mean? … As state's attorney I do think we need to look at strengthening our gun laws. I looked at New York; I think they raised their minimum from a year to three-and-a-half, and they saw a decrease in crime. If we do our part to divert on the front end, for those with non-violent offenses and drug offenses, we can focus our resources on the violence. I think that's the way to go—I'll continue to fight for the gun laws and I've had some support down in Springfield, but certainly not enough to get anything passed.
WCT: What is the role of this office in terms of being a watchdog for the police?
AA: Obviously it's your job, and you do have to handle these cases. Since I have taken over, I have charged 96 police officers, Van Dyke being the 96th, with a variety of different crimes—bribery, perjury, excessive force. I'm not afraid to charge officers when they break the law. We want a system that's just. We want a system you can have confidence in. When you have officers breaking the law, that shakes the confidence in the system. I'm the only person in this race that has actually tried and convicted Chicago Police officers, so I'm not afraid of those things, and I think that it's our job as state's attorneys to do it.
WCT: How do you make sure that that task is carried out more speedily?
AA: Obviously, that's the question everyone has on the Van Dyke case. When it comes to police shootings, they're not easy cases, for a variety of reasons. … When you investigate these cases, you have to know a variety of things—obviously, the facts of what occurred and the law. What is the use of force model? How was this officer trained? What were the rules and regulations of this department? You have to know the United States Supreme Court law governs the analysis when you're looking at police officer-involved shootings. There are all these things that [don't] come into play with a civilian shooting.
So there are things that are complicated from day one—all the more reason to take your time to get it right. In that particular case, I stand by my decision to involve the FBI and the U.S. attorney. The FBI brought some tremendous resources that we don't have, or [Independent Police Review Authority] doesn't have. The U.S. Attorney and I have a great relationship and we do a lot of joint investigations.
I learned a lot these last three months. With the investigation, it was improper to take that long to get it right. One of the things I don't want to do is rush to judgment and get it wrong. I'd rather take my time and get it right. I believe we were able to build a stronger case by doing what we did. What I've learned from all of this is that the public wants to know what's going on with all these cases. While we work on a lot of things, and we have to abide by rules of professional conduct and Supreme Court rules that tell us what you can and cannot say—and additional federal rules, also—the public wants to know, "This particular shooting, what is going on with that?"
What I intend to do, once the election is over, is to have a link on my website, to have a link for people to be able to go on and see a particular case. We'll tell if it's pending or what the status is. If no charges are brought you'll be able to link to a white paper that'll tell you why charges were not filed. That's important and it's something I learned—[many in the public think] "you guys did this, but you didn't tell us." … We're bound by what we can and cannot stay, but we can at least say, "Here's the status of this."
WCT: How do you answer charges of racism by this office in the investigation and prosecution of crime in Cook County?
AA: I think what's gotten lost in the discussion and coverage of this is, I did charge an on-duty police officer of first-degree murder and that's never happened before in a shooting case in Cook County, in the city of Chicago. Sometimes I think people have forgotten that. I've been doing this job for 29 years. When I started in this office there were probably five Hispanics. When I got hired, I was probably five. One of the most important things to consider, when you do this job, is, who are my victims? My victims are minorities. Minority communities are disproportionately victimized by violent crimes. I have never turned my back on any community.
I've gotten the question, do Black lives matter? My answer is, absolutely they do. If I didn't believe that, I couldn't have done this job for as long as I've done it, because the majority of my victims are African American. They matter every day, and not just when they're lost to a rogue police officer. They matter when that nine-year-old is executed in an alley. When that beautiful aspiring model is shot dead in a drive-by shooting. When that African American senior citizen is beaten to death, damned right, they matter.
WCT: A colleague [at Windy City Times] wrote an extensive series about a trans woman of color, Eisha Love, who was arrested for attempted murder after an incident in Austin. Love spent nearly four years in jail with no trial, and ultimately pled guilty to a lesser charge and was released. One reason for the numerous delays, the story reported, was ASAs [assistant state's attorneys] not showing up for hearings. How do you explain that delay?
AA: I am aware of that case, because that was a case that was complicated from the very beginning. I believe there was a plea of guilty and there was one other case still pending from something that happened in the jail. As far as the delay on our end, sometimes things happen just by virtue of where they are and in what courtroom they are in. I don't like hearing about any ASA not being in court—that's not what we're all about. I know this was a case that was sent on to one of those supplemental calls, which always drags things out. But I know that, as far as training and policy, that's something that I won't stand for. I wouldn't say that the fact an ASA might be late for court was the reason; there's other things that transpire in that, but I am aware of that case. That was a tough case from the very beginning, in a lot of different ways, because there were other issues too; I thought the jail was supposed to be 'trans-friendly' and I'm not so sure she was housed properly.
WCT: She was in an all-male facility. Can you speak on that?
AA: I don't have any control over that. But I know [Sheriff] Tom Dart does, and we have a great working relationship, and I know he's on record saying that they have the facilities, so I don't understand why that happened.
WCT: How would you describe your record on issues pertaining to the LGBT community?
AA: I've always had a great relationship with the LGBT community and will continue to as I go along. One of the things I'm very proud of is that we have more assistant state's attorneys who identify as LGBT, who are comfortable being out. I can tell you that is not what it was like back in 1986 when I started. We've hired 17 since 2008 that openly identify. We now have a council for hate crimes and LGBT [issues]. We also did a sensitivity-training focusing on LGBT issues. We do all kinds of trainings, but that one was specifically LGBT.
My LGBT advisory council existed under the previous state's attorney. I have African American, Hispanic, Asian, LGBT and a hate crimes-council. One of the things that was always done traditionally is give awards—for Black History Month, Hispanic Heritage Month—but we never gave out anything for LGBT. I brought [openly gay First Assistant State's Attorney] Dan Kirk back to the office, and he first became my chief of staff. I said to him, "Why don't we give awards for LGBT?" So we started it over at Center on Halsted. We always have the biggest turnout of any awards ceremony at that one. I thought it was important to recognize the community, and the people who had made great strides in support of the community.
The hate-crimes council was dormant for a while. Howard Kaplan was head of our council but he passed away and it became dormant. But it's becoming reinvigorated. It's important because we're talking about hate crimes and we're looking at what's been going on at a national level. Knock on wood, we haven't seen any increase in hate crimes, but we want to be prepared for it, and we want to know if there's any particular issue in any community. There's an increase in violence in Boystown. One of my assistants was jumped and robbed a year-and-a-half ago. Another assistant came to the aid of a gay couple at the lakefront, and he himself was beaten pretty bad. We charged a hate crime on that one as well. We have to be mindful in the LGBT community; I'm seeing not necessarily an increase in hate crimes, but the violence—the robberies, for example—is happening way too often.
I think the the LGBT community can be victimized in many ways, particularly with the youth. There are a lot of homeless LGBT youth who can find themselves susceptible to violence. Many of them can't come out to their families and they find themselves out on the street. Homelessness, and being able to serve those kids, is a top priority. For us, making sure that we have direct communication and the sensitivity with which we can serve that community the best we can.
Also, I was invited about a year and a half ago, along with a select group of prosecutors, to talk about whether states should have standalone statutes with regards to intentional transmission of HIV. It was really informative. We had several doctors who updated us on what the medicine is, and then I learned about other states. Illinois is actually better than a lot of other states, but I still I think our law needs to be updated—it's kind of 1980s. That's something we're going to be looking at. The strides in medicine that is now available certainly weren't there when this started.
I'm proud of all the strides that we've made. As I said, when I started with this office, it was a much different office. Every year, when I send staff to Lavender Law, we have a line of people waiting to interview with us, because people know that Cook County has a reputation for being accepting of LGBT. We get applicants from across the country that want to come work for us, because they know that the environment that we've created is a respectful environment and they can feel free to be out in our office.
See AnitaAlvarez.com .
