April 1, 2019 | 9:21pm
Members of the Fraternal Order of Police and supporters of the group clash with a protester while demonstrating against Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx.
AP
Dueling protests broke out Monday in Chicago over the Jussie Smollett case — with hundreds of demonstrators, including angry cops and community activists, descending on the offices of State’s Attorney Kim Foxx following last week’s decision to drop the actor’s charges.
“Foxx must go!” shouted members of the city’s Fraternal Order of Police, which was in attendance.
“Racists must go!” the activists fired back, according to reports.
A number of community groups, including the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, rallied outside Foxx’s downtown office on Monday after FOP members announced they would be protesting.
The activists were largely outnumbered, with countless cops and retired officers showing up with signs to voice their outrage over the handling of the Smollett case.
“Make Crook County Great Again — Put Kim Foxx in jail,” read one sign, which was held up by retired CPD officer Patrick Learnahan.
“If police don’t do their jobs they fire them, but [Foxx] didn’t do her job and nothing happens to her,” Learnahan told the Chicago Sun-Times.
FOP members have called for a federal investigation into Foxx and her decision to drop the “Empire” actor’s charges — arguing that she may have broken the law when she tried to take the case away from Chicago police.
“Somebody needs to tell Kim Foxx she’s the prosecutor, not the public defender,” said Peter Garza, a retired CPD detective. “You can’t have a prosecutor who has this mindset of a public defender.”
Foxx supporters accused the FOP of using the Smollett situation to launch a smear campaign against her.
“The attack on Kim Foxx isn’t about Jussie,” said Rev. Michael Pfleger, the pastor of St. Sabina Church. “It’s an excuse to remove a strong black woman.”
Nubia Ptah, who was also on “Team Foxx,” agreed — saying the FOP’s efforts were “an atrocity.”
“It’s insidious that they would say she has to go,” Ptah told the Sun-Times. “Kim Foxx is going nowhere but to work tomorrow. This is pretend outrage and manufactured anger.”
Many of the activists brought up the 2014 LaQuan McDonald shooting, which involved a cop — who was later convicted of murder — killing a 17-year-old.
“Sixteen shots and a cover-up,” the demonstrators chanted.
“This is phony justice,” seethed CAARPR co-chairman Frank Chapman in response to the FOP outrage.
“Not one person from the FOP or anyone of their ilk called a demonstration in defense of or promoting justice for Laquan McDonald,” he told the Chicago Tribune.
Smollett, 36, was indicted earlier this month on felony disorderly conduct charges for allegedly staging a hate crime against himself and filing a false police report. The charges were dropped last week by prosecutors in exchange for community service and the forfeiture of Smollett’s $10,000 bond.
Foxx, just a month earlier, had recused herself from the case due to a conversation she had with one of Smollett’s relatives, who got her number from a Democratic fundraiser tied to former first lady Michelle Obama. She has denied being involved in the decision to drop Smollett’s charges.
Police officials, meanwhile, have said repeatedly that Smollett is still guilty of staging a fake hate crime against himself. CPD Superintendent Eddie Johnson doubled down on the position in a statement over the weekend.
“As the State’s Attorney said clearly, Mr. Smollett was not exonerated,” Johnson said. “I stand behind the professionalism of the detectives who worked on this case as well as the conclusions of the independent grand jury.”
With Post wires
