Who is Anita? Well, the Anita behind the passionate hashtag #ByeAnita, is none other than Chicago’s Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez. Why people on Twitter – and the people of Cook County – are so happy is because Alvarez was voted out of office Tuesday, March 15, after eight years.
During that eight years, Alvarez has had somewhat of a reputation. The worst case to make that reputation was the shooting death of Laquan McDonald. McDonald was shot 16 times by Officer Jason Van Dyke. While details emerged that pointed to a cover up by the Chicago Police Department, Alvarez still didn’t believe any mistakes were made. Also, it basically took a year for Van Dyke to be charged with murder. Who in their right mind would think that this was okay?
This obviously did not make people happy. As reported by Think Progress:
“In the past few months, she’s been the subject of public outrage for her handling of the Laquan McDonald’s shooting, which inspired calls for her resignation. But during her tenure as Chicago’s lead attorney, Alvarez has routinely covered up police violence and failed to prosecute cops for misconduct, including but not limited to deadly shootings, harassment, and making bogus arrests. She’s refused to reopen the cases of people who are likely innocent, criminalized people for recording officers, and bullied college students who were critical of her office.”
The list of her actions go on to include horrible cases and statistics that involve juvenile arrests. To the great pleasure of the residents of Cook County though, Alvarez was defeated by Kim Foxx in the Democratic primaries Tuesday. Beating Alvarez with nearly 58-percent of the vote, Foxx will go on to face her Republican opponent Christopher Pfannkuche.
The New York Daily News reported on Foxx’s remarks during her winning speech by writing:
“Our struggles here are very real,” Foxx said at Tuesday’s victory speech. “The need to rebuild a broken criminal justice here in Cook County is not work that should be taken lightly.”
It seems the people of Cook County have shown the power that citizens do have if they just participate and vote. While there is definitely more that can be done by citizens to change things, this seems to be a good start. This is also true about the rest of America. So lastly, I will join in with Twitter and the good people of Cook County by saying, “#ByeAnita!”
h/t to Think Progress
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPXHn_L2l5A&w=853&h=480]
