CHICAGO — A Chicago man accused of threatening to shoot and hang Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx and Mayor Lori Lightfoot over the city’s rising crime rates is facing felony charges.
Christopher J. Tatlock, 32, of Lincoln Park, was charged Thursday in Cook County Circuit Court with two counts of threatening a public official and two counts of a hate crime, according to Attorney General Kwame Raoul’s office, which is prosecuting the case.
Tatlock’s bond was set at $5,000 during a court hearing Thursday, according to the attorney general’s office. He was also placed on electronic home monitoring and required to surrender his FOID card and all guns in his possession.
Prosecutors said Tatlock sent an email to Foxx on May 4 in which he threatened to shoot and hang her if she did not prosecute crime in Chicago. Tatlock sent a similar email to Lightfoot, and investigators traced the emails back to him, prosecutors said.
WBEZ reported the first email to Foxx included the N-word and she better “start prosecuting crime or I’ll put a bullet in the back of your head and hang you from a tree.”
The Lightfoot email included similar threats if the mayor did not “start getting tough on crime,” according to WBEZ, which cited prosecutors.
Prosecutors in court said Tatlock admitted sending the emails because he “was upset about [rising crime] being so close to home,” according to WBEZ.
“There is no room in our society for hate and violence, and we must condemn such actions in the strongest terms possible,” Raoul said. “My office will work to hold accountable anyone who threatens the physical safety of any resident of our state – regardless of the position they hold.”
Tatlock’s lawyer, Konstantinos Markakos, declined to comment, but said he and Tatlock would participate and continue with the case as it progresses through the court system.
Tatlock’s next court date is set for 9 a.m. May 20 at the Skokie Courthouse.