On Tuesday, prosecutors dropped all charges against Empire star Jussie Smollett, and while many celebrated the unusual move, some see it as a miscarriage of justice. According to Fox News , Mayor Rahm Emanuel called the prosecutor’s move a “whitewash of justice.” Chicago police Superintendent Eddie Johnson reaffirmed that he believes Smollett orchestrated the hoax.
The actor was accused of staging an attack against himself in order to raise his profile, but on Tuesday, the state’s attorney dropped all charges against Smollett, as The Inquisitr previously reported. Both Emanuel and Johnson were blindsided by the decision to not pursue the charges against the actor, only finding out about the situation at the same time as the rest of the public.
Emanuel was openly upset with the move and lamented that there appears to be a different standard of justice for people who have influential positions.
“Where is the accountability in the system? You cannot have – because of a person’s position – one set of rules applies to them and another set of rules apply to everyone else. Our officers did hard work day in and day out, countless hours working to unwind what actually happened that night,” he said. “The city saw its reputation dragged through the mud…It’s not just the officers’ work, but the work of the grand jury that made a decision based on only a sliver of the evidence. Because of the judge’s decision, none of that evidence will ever be made public.”
Johnson said that he was upset that the police department wasn’t consulted before the charges were dropped and vowed to have further conversations with the prosecutor’s office.
Johnson didn’t mince words when it came to his opinion on whether or not Smollett was guilty.
“At the end of the day it was Smollett who committed this hoax,” he said.
Johnson added that if Smollett wanted to prove his innocence, he should do so in a court, according to CNN .
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel calls the dropping of all charges against actor Jussie Smollett a “whitewash of justice.” Follow live updates: https://t.co/Z6Pb11fYHn pic.twitter.com/JwiuRKI1Cg
— CNN Breaking News (@cnnbrk) March 26, 2019
Smollett was charged with 16 felony counts for allegedly staging a hoax in which he claims to have been attacked by two men who poured a chemical on him, put a noose around his neck, and shouted offensive statements at him. He claimed his attackers shouted Make America Great Again slogans and made racial slurs against him.
Johnson expressed frustration with the alleged hoax in February, asking why someone of color would use something as offensive as the symbolism of a noose to try and bolster their career. At the time, Johnson stated that the police department wasn’t suggesting that the situation was a hoax, but that the evidence showed that was the case.