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The Rev. Al Sharpton tore into Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel on Saturday and criticized him for taking Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx to task over allegedly dropping Jussie Smollett’s criminal case. Sharpton pointed to the notion that Emanuel didn’t have the same energy when it came to expressing outrage over the police murder of Laquan McDonald.
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Sharpton told The Chicago Tribune that Emanuel’s rhetoric is “Hypocrisy 101” after the mayor spoke out furiously against Foxx for allowing Smollett to “walk away” from the 16-count felony indictment for the alleged staged homophobic and racist attack, calling it said it was a “whitewash of justice.”
Emanuel is continuing to hold Smollett accountable and has sent a demand letter to his attorneys asking for more than $130,000 in payment to the city of Chicago for the work that investigators did looking into the case.
Sharpton sharply criticized the Chicago mayor indicating that Emanuel was all but silent on the murder of 17-year old McDonald at the hands of police.
“The reason this is of national significance to me, there is a marked difference between how they reacted to this and how they reacted to the Laquan McDonald case. They were not outraged when the video was withheld until after the mayor’s election,” Sharpton said of Emanuel, police Superintendent Eddie Johnson and other top police officials, according to The Chicago Tribune.
“There was a fox in the henhouse then, but the fox wasn’t Kim then. The name of that fox was whoever was in the mayor’s race.”
Sharpton was giving the keynote speech Saturday at the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow/PUSH Coalition.
Sharpton was on hand in support of the contenders for the mayor’s seat, former federal prosecutor Lori Lightfoot and Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, both Black women, and one will no doubt make history when elected Chicago’s first African-American female mayor on Tuesday after a run-off.
Sharpton threw his full support behind Foxx and told a rousing crowd of Emanuel’s “hypocrisy” in regards to the two cases.
“I found it strange that the mayor who didn’t hold a national press conference when the Laquan McDonald’s tape wasn’t released, I find it strange that the police chief that didn’t say a word, when they let an election go by and couldn’t find the tape, but all of the sudden, you have selective outrage and you start attacking Ms. Foxx,” Sharpton said to a roar of cheers.
Even more, the Chicago Police Department along with the Chicago mayor has launched their own campaign and have planned a protest to denounce Smollett.
The Advocate, reports that what began online will now be taken to the streets. The police union representing the Chicago Police Department has announced a protest on Monday at the Cook County prosecutor’s office as pleas for a federal interjection into the case continues to intensify.
As for Smollett’s guilt or innocence, or whether Smollett should have been required to apologize, Sharpton remained neutral on the matter.
“I don’t know where that falls in judicial lines,” Sharpton told The Chicago Tribune. “What she did or didn’t do, coulda, woulda, shoulda done does not, in any way to me, justify the hypocrisy shown by city officials that, in my opinion, helped to influence the last election.”
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“I think they need to understand there will be a national reaction to them trying to profile Kim Foxx,” Sharpton said. “This hasn’t nothing to do with Jussie Smollett, this has something to do with a black woman having the power that every prosecutor has.”