We’ve all seen gritty police procedural dramas where the police bust some bad guys and then work alongside the public prosecutor to bring a case that’s strong enough to put the criminal behind bars.

That’s the norm on television, but as mayor of Orland Park, I’m here to tell you that’s not the current experience in places such as Chicago and Cook County. Instead, politicians there are incredibly decriminalizing crime by pursuing liberal policies such as defunding the police and no cash bail.

Despite mountains of proof, we keep hearing a refrain from Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx that goes something like this: “We looked into the case, but we don’t think it’s enough to meet our burden of proof.” With that, she lets one criminal after another walk and commit more crimes, for which they might be let go yet again.

Foxx and Chief Judge Timothy Evans run a “catch and release” program that allows criminals to commit crime after crime, resulting in serious crimes expanding outward into the suburbs .

Cire Robinson, an Oak Lawn sixth grader, was tragically killed by a drunk driver last January who was caught with a .457 blood alcohol content. That driver was only free and able to commit this crime because Foxx’s office dropped all 17 of his prior felony charges. Yes, that's right — 17.

Here in Orland Park, where I serve as mayor, we have to work around inert prosecutors such as Foxx. When she refuses to charge criminals for their crimes, we turn to federal agencies to ensure that justice is served.

Recently, an individual whom Foxx refused to charge pleaded guilty to two of three federal charges carrying a minimum six years in prison. For this, we can thank the outstanding work of our police officers. This is what we have to do to keep Orland Park's families safe and its neighborhoods secure.

Our department never accepts the can't-do attitude of the Cook County State’s Attorney office. While crime has reached record levels in Chicago and throughout most of Cook County, here in Orland Park, we’ve reduced crime to its lowest rate in 27 years. With the lowest violent crime rate of any Illinois city with a population greater than 50,000, Orland Park was rated the safest city in Illinois in 2020.

Your community can achieve these same results doing exactly what we’ve done:

Support your police department and its officers, as police departments cannot be effective without community support.

Invest heavily in investigations, so as to produce so much evidence that liberal prosecutors have no choice but to prosecute criminals.

Utilize modern technology such as license plate readers throughout your municipality to catch criminals, especially carjackers. This also helps get illegal weapons off the street.

If you have major retail centers, work with them to put youth supervision policies in place.

Require businesses to cooperate with police in investigations as a condition of their business licensing, like we do in Orland Park.

Take advantage of federal programs to hire mental health professionals so they can handle mental health calls and your officers can focus on criminal matters.

Make it clear to potential criminals that crimes committed in your jurisdiction will be swiftly prosecuted and punished.

This commonsense approach works.

Our police recently hauled in a group of armed robbers who were smugly laughing because they assumed they’d get a free pass. Their tune immediately changed once they realized they committed the crime in Orland Park on the Will County side, and they were going to face consequences for their actions.

Just a few months ago, the FBI and U.S. Attorney’s office thanked Orland Park for our help in putting a violent felon and drug trafficker behind bars. This individual was already a convicted felon, and our police department collected so much evidence that this individual pleaded guilty when the feds brought charges. Of course, Foxx had refused to take the case.

If your community faces the same challenge as we do here in Orland Park, dealing with politicians more interested in protecting criminals than victims and law-abiding citizens, you have a duty to stand up to these backwardly liberal politicians and their misguided policies. Nothing is more important than keeping our children, families, and neighborhoods safe.

Original Source Can Be Found Here.