Veteran Chicago Prosecutor Quits With Blistering Letter on Crime: ‘I Will Not Raise My Son Here’

A 20-year veteran Chicago prosecutor quit his job and wrote a blistering letter to his colleagues on his way out Friday, blasting the city’s “stupid” leaders and declaring they set the city “on a course to disaster”

Jason Poje, a felony trial attorney, put in his two weeks’ notice with the city at the end of April. Before he left, however, he sent a goodbye letter to 85 colleagues to explain that the city’s insistence on following a “popular political agenda” has made Chicago more dangerous for everyone.

“{snip} And the worst part is that the agency for whom I work has backed literally every policy change that had the predicable, and predicted, outcome of more crime and more people getting hurt,” Poje wrote, referring to the office of Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx.

“Bond reform designed to make sure no one stays in jail while their cases are pending with no safety net to handle more criminals on the streets, shorter parole periods, lower sentences for repeat offenders, the malicious and unnecessary prosecution of law enforcement officers, overuse of diversion programs, intentionally not pursuing prosecutions for crimes lawfully on the books after being passed by our legislature and signed by a governor, all of these so-called reforms have had a direct negative impact, with consequences that will last for a generation,” he continued.

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