Lenient judges and offenders who know how to game the system are a major problem
Last month, Officer John Bartholomew, a Chicago Police officer, was murdered in a shooting incident at Swedish Hospital on Chicago's North Side. The alleged gunman, Alphanso Talley, a 26-year-old career criminal, also allegedly gravely wounded Bartholomew’s police partner. The brute had pistol whipped a female store clerk to begin his crime spree earlier in the day.
In the 2022 Illinois gubernatorial race, the main issue, as it is this year, was the no-cash bail SAFE-T Act, which took effect a year later.
The 2026 contest for governor is a rematch from that year. Incumbent Democrat J.B. Pritzker is facing Republican challenger Darren Bailey.
During the 2022 campaign, Bailey made the exaggerated but memorable claim Chicago was “living The Purge when criminals ravage at will and the cops are told to stand down.”
Bailey was alluding to The Purge movie franchise, where one day a year, people can commit crimes without facing punishment.
The Loch Ness Monster
Not true, Pritzker answered back. The SAFE-T Act was written to protect a mother. A mythical mother, the Loch Ness Monster of petty criminals.
The governor, many times during the campaign, repeated this lie.
“Making sure that we’re also addressing the problem of a single mother who shoplifted diapers for her baby, who is put in jail and kept there for six months because she doesn’t have a couple of hundred dollars to pay for bail.”
Yes, I said Loch Ness Monster, because such a woman — sorry “Nessie” believers — never existed, except in Pritzker's imagination.
Eventually, Pritzker added baby formula to the mother’s “the heist.”
In response, Patrick Kenneally, who was then the McHenry County state’s attorney, and 100 other Illinois county prosecutors — out of 102 — opposed the SAFE-T Act, and in a lawsuit called the law a “clear and present threat to public safety.” And Kenneally said that under Illinois law prior to the SAFE-T Act it was impossible for Loch Ness Mother to be jailed pretrial for simply stealing diapers, calling Pritzker’s claim “misinformation appealing to emotion.”
And amid that discussion, Pritzker launched another lie.
"Well, let’s just set the record straight with everybody. The SAFE-T Act is designed to keep murderers and domestic abusers, violent criminals in jail.”
Yet Talley, despite being a seven-time felon who was accused of violence, a parole absconder, and someone who stopped charging his electronic monitoring ankle bracelet, was not locked in a jail cell on the morning he allegedly murdered Bartholomew.
Pritzker lied and a Chicago cop died. And many more Illinoisans were likely killed because of the SAFE-T Act.
And the media chooses not to call Pritzker out on his untruths.
Apologists for the SAFE-T Act, some of whom are lawyers such as Pritzker, are quick to point out, even in tragic outrages like the Bartholomew murder, it is the judges who are responsible for thugs like Talley roaming free on electronic monitoring after being accused of felonies, not the controversial law. But the judge who put Talley on EM, John F. Lyke, cited the SAFE-T Act as a reason for setting him free.
The purge-light
But the big picture is being overlooked, particularly in Chicago and Cook County. The eight-year reign of error by Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx, when the criminal was always right, sent this message to criminals: You are much less likely to be held accountable for your actions.
While not The Purge, it was time for The Purge-light.
And it still is.
Prisons, jails, street gang hangouts. and so many other places are filled with self-sworn-in “lawyers” whose “legal practice” is the specialty of “this-is-what-you-can-get-away-with.”
Talley, in a likely ploy to gain sympathy from Judge Lyke, claimed to be enrolled at Truman College. Did one of those “lawyers” feed him that idea? Did Talley ever show up for class? Did Lyke ask for Talley’s registration documents?
Under the SAFE-T Act, lawbreakers can get away with a lot without being jailed. Criminals know how to game the system.
That is why the revolving door of criminality spins much faster now in Illinois.
Here is an example from suburban North Chicago that the Lake & McHenry County Scanner reported on this week. A Chicago man, Hassan A. Grant, who is the founder of a violence prevention group — some stuff just can't be made up — was arrested after a police chase. The accused allegedly boasted to law enforcement officers that he couldn’t be detained for the crimes he was accused of because of the SAFE-T Act. He was correct, the Lake & McHenry County Scanner said, but then the violence preventer apparently lost his temper and reportedly threatened two cops.
That’s a detainable offense. Grant is currently locked up.
Progressives are wrong about many things but their opinions on criminals are particularly flawed. Fear of getting caught for committing crimes and the consequences after being arrested drive their actions. Talley, despite being a seven-time felon, has served only one day in prison for his crimes. That day in prison was a mere hiccup in his life.
The minimizing of organized mayhem by Mayor Brandon Johnson — he calls youth riots "teen trends" — makes a bad situation worse. So does the preponderance of far-left judges within the Cook County Circuit Court system.
A war on women
While the murder of Officer Bartholomew and the wounding of his partner deservedly was the center point of the coverage of Talley's day of rage, his first reputed victim that day was Maria Valezquez, a middle-aged single mother of three, who worked at the discount store Talley and his accomplice allegedly robbed. Valezquez was pistol-whipped and her nose was broken during the robbery.
Sheridan Gorman, an 18-year-old Loyola University freshman, was murdered near campus in March. An illegal alien, who was arrested for shoplifting and then skipped two court dates related to that theft, is charged with her murder.
Bethany MaGee was set on fire last November inside a CTA Blue Line car allegedly by a man with 72 prior arrests. In August, that man was arrested for reportedly attacking a social worker. That crime was detainable under the SAFE-T Act, but a reckless judge, Teresa Molina-Gonzalez, released him on electronic monitoring for this mind-boggling reason: "I can’t keep everybody in jail because the state’s attorney wants me to." Had the SAFE-T Act not been enacted, Molina-Gonzalez would have had the option of placing a high bail on the career criminal accused of attacking MaGee. So would have Lyke in Talley’s situation.
In each of these horrific crimes, males were accused of attacking women.
One might say that Pritzker and Illinois Democrats are engaged in a war on women. Real women, not make-believe ones like the governor’s diaper-stealing mother.
However, locally and nationally, women are more likely to vote Democratic than men.
There are many things wrong with the legal system in Cook County and the rest of Illinois, including electronic monitoring failures, unpunished missed court dates, judges giving fifth, sixth, and seventh chances to habitual lawbreakers, and so much more.
Getting the SAFE-T Act meaningfully amended and, hopefully, repealed will be a long battle, especially because of Democratic legislative gerrymandering. But a giant first step will be for Darren Bailey to upset Pritzker in this fall’s gubernatorial election. The Republican faces long odds, but then again, Election Day is six months away. There is a lot of time.
An easier target will be Cook County Judge Teresa Molina-Gonzalez. She faces a retention vote in November. Voters must wait until 2028 to oust John F. Lyke from the bench. Charles Beach, the Chief Judge of the Cook County Circuit Court and the official who oversees the county’s failed electronic monitoring program, is also up for retention in two years.
The truth of the SAFE-T Act is tragic. Pritzker defended it with lies.
