From Yorktown Heights to Chicago: A Family’s Worst Nightmare and a City’s Failure

Enough is Enough

How many more lives need to be shattered before we stop pretending everything is fine in Chicago?

How many more parents have to get that phone call, the one every mother and father fears, before those in charge finally admit what every resident already knows: This City of Chicago isn't as safe as Mayor Brandon Johnson claims.

For years, we have been told to trust the numbers. We have been told that crime is “trending down,” the system is working, and reforms are succeeding. But statistics don’t tuck your child into a dorm room at night. Statistics don’t walk them home from class. Statistics don’t protect them on a dark lakefront path.

Reality does. And the situation in Chicago today is unacceptable.

Imagine being a parent in Yorktown Heights, New York. You raise your child, guide them, and make sacrifices for them. You celebrate when they are accepted to college, especially a respected institution such as Loyola University Chicago. You help them board a plane or move them into a dormatory, trusting they'll be safe in one of America’s great cities.

You trust the university, the city, and the system.

And then your world collapses.

An 18-year-old freshman, your child, was shot near Loyola Beach. Struck in the head. Not during a robbery gone wrong or in the middle of a confrontation. But, by all accounts, randomly.

Randomly.

There is a specific sort of terror associated with randomness. It means you can't prepare or avoid it. No chance to say: “If only they had done something differently.”

Because there was nothing they could do.

Let that reality sink in for a moment. A young student, full of promise and doing exactly what they were expected to do, pursuing an education, loses their life in an instant. And a family more than 800 miles away is left with grief that will never heal.

This isn't just a tragedy; it's a failure, and it isn't an isolated one.

We witnessed a woman set on fire on a Chicago Transit Authority train — an act so horrifying it should have prompted immediate, widespread change. Instead, it disappeared from the headlines.

We have witnessed the rise of the “Loop punchers,” where women are randomly attacked in broad daylight downtown Chicago. Again, shocking. Yet it quickly becomes normalized.

And that might be the most dangerous development of all: We are becoming numb.

When brutal, senseless acts of violence cease to shock us and become part of the background noise of city life, we are no longer simply contending with a crime problem; we are confronting a societal crisis.

Public safety is not just a political talking point. It is the foundation on which everything else depends. Without it, trust erodes. Without it, stability vanishes. Without it, there is no future.

Yet in Chicago, public safety has been deprioritized, debated, or diverted too frequently.

I am urging Brandon Johnson, his administration, and Governor Pritzker to take swift, decisive action.

Not tomorrow. Not after another task force. Now.

This involves putting more officers on the street — visible, proactive policing that discourages crime before it occurs. It means providing law enforcement with the resources, technology, and support they need to perform their duties effectively. It also entails implementing policies that prioritize victims over offenders and ensuring that those who commit violent acts are held accountable.

It also involves summoning the courage to speak the truth.

Because until leaders are willing to say, clearly and without hesitation, that Chicago has a serious public safety issue, nothing will change. If this continues, the effects will spread well beyond the city border. Parents across the country will start asking a straightforward, heartbreaking question: Is it safe to send my child to college in Chicago?

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Currently, that answer is growing increasingly difficult to justify.

And if nothing changes, we might soon reach a point where the honest answer is one no city should ever accept. "No."

No parent should have to risk losing their child just to pursue education. No family should have to wonder if a peaceful walk along a lakefront, something meant to bring calm and beauty, could turn deadly.

This isn't fearmongering; it is the truth.

This is about an 18-year-old freshman from Yorktown Heights, New York, who will never graduate. Never begin a career. Never return home.

This is about every student walking alone at night. Every commuter stepping onto a train. Every family is trying to believe that their city will protect them.

Chicago is a fantastic American city. It embodies resilience, history, and pride.

But right now, it is failing at its most fundamental duty: To protect its people.

No more excuses. No more deflection. No more lives lost. Enough is enough.

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Tom Weitzel is a retired Chief of Police in Riverside, Illinois, with 37 years of law enforcement experience. He now advocates nationally for officer safety, responsible media, and principled leadership. Chief Weitzel is a Fellow of Law Enforcement at Awake Illinois.