The Bloodshed Continues As Illinois Doubles Down on Progressive Reform

CWB News provides an unflinching video of two criminals robbing and shooting a young man in the Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood last Friday.  There is nothing unique about this brazen crime which, once again, puts the racist criminal justice reform policies of progressive politicians and district attorneys in sharp perspective.   As reported by ABC 5 in Chicago, the 23-year-old culinary student was ambushed, robbed of his cellphone and shot by a pair of criminals police believe are responsible for eight armed robberies in the neighborhood over a two-day period.  Does anybody believe that these two robbers are first time offenders?

The violence is no longer occurring just in predominantly minority neighborhoods.  Last weekend two people were shot in Chicago’s Theater District, a teenager was shot and killed inside a Streeterville hotel, and a woman was shot and killed at a high end bowling lounge in the popular River North District.  Liberal Mayor Lori Lightfoot told reporters the she is “not happy about this weekend,”  and that the city needs to “step up efforts downtown.”   That certainly ought to scare the criminals.

Lightfoot has been Mayor since 2019.  According to the Chicago Police Department, 2021 ended with 797 homicides on her watch. That is 25 more than were recorded 2020, 299 more than in 2019 and the most since 1996. And there were 3,561 shooting incidents in 2021, which is just over 300 more than were recorded in 2020 and a staggering 1,415 more shooting incidents than were recorded in the city in 2019.  As Black Lives Matter turned the city into a warzone in the Summer of 2020, Mayor Lightfoot was pushing for police reform (read de-policing).

But Mayor Lightfoot’s weak and vacillating leadership pales in comparison to Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx, who was elected as a progressive reformer in 2016 with a campaign bankrolled by billionaire George Soros.  Almost immediately after her election, bail was reduced or eliminated for thousands of arrestees and her office refused to charge thousands more arrested for property and drug crimes, including auto theft, street dealing and assault.  In 2020, as Chicago was besieged with rioting, violence and looting over the death of George Floyd, the city’s criminal justice system became a turnstile, releasing almost every offender back to the streets hours after arrest.  Thousands of criminals serving jail time were also turned lose to protect them from Covid 19.  A real prosecutor would have fought these policies, Foxx worked with defense attorneys to get inmates released.

As crime and violence have been spiraling out of control, last year the Illinois Legislature and Governor J.B. Pritzker adopted a 764 page criminal justice reform bill that will expand Foxx’s Chicago policies to the entire state.  As reported by Chicago’s WTTW. Pritzker  announced,  “this legislation marks a substantial step towards dismantling the systemic racism that plagues our communities, our state and our nation, and brings us closer to true safety, true fairness and true justice.”  The bill eliminates cash bail for any crime, and places numerous restrictions on police departments and individual officers.

The most disturbing part of these reforms is that proponents claim that they are necessary to protect minorities from injustice.  Under these and similar reforms violent crime in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles and Philadelphia has increased the most in minority neighborhoods, where both the shooters and their victims are overwhelmingly blacks or Hispanics.

Just like the criminals and the victim in the video documenting last Friday’s shooting in Chicago.