Still Not Working

CWB has a whole slew of stories concerning Illinois' failed bail and prison system:

• Story #1 - A 17-year-old Chicago Public Schools student shot a classmate, leaving her unable to walk again and causing her to lose her pregnancy, while awaiting trial on a carjacking case — just two days after he was arrested for allegedly threatening someone with a knife during a “gang check,” prosecutors said.

  [...] Angel Funez-Reyes had been placed on electronic monitoring for a carjacking case in juvenile court, but a judge removed him from the ankle monitor on August 18, about three weeks before the shooting, prosecutors said. Two days before the shooting, Funez-Reyes was arrested on charges of aggravated assault and unlawful use of a weapon after a citizen flagged down police officers and reported that Funez-Reyes had shouted gang-related slurs and asked him, “What you is?” before pulling out a knife and swinging it at him. Officers detained Funez-Reyes and recovered a utility knife and two rounds of 9mm ammunition, prosecutors said. He was released.

• Story #2 (a prison failure) - Just three months after getting out of prison for armed robbery, Benjamin Villanueva is facing new charges after Chicago police say he carjacked a couple at gunpoint near the Lincoln Park Zoo and crashed the stolen vehicle moments later, injuring four people as officers closed in.

  Villanueva, 32, was sentenced to 12 years in prison for a 2020 armed robbery, but his time was reduced to six years under state law. He was released on July 2.

• Story #3 - A 40-year-old man who was released under Illinois’ SAFE-T Act after allegedly punching a Chicago cop at a South Side Red Line station is now charged with attempted murder in a shooting that left two men badly injured last month.

  Terry King is accused of shooting two men, ages 28 and 44, in the 800 block of East 79th Street around 7:45 p.m. on September 17, Chicago police said. During a detention hearing, prosecutors identified King as the gunman and said he stomped on one victim’s head after the man collapsed onto the sidewalk. 

  King was on felony pretrial release at the time of the shooting in connection with a June 24 incident at the 69th Street Red Line station. Officers had responded to a disturbance and tried to remove him from the station when, police said, he punched an officer in the side of the face and swung at the officer twice more, missing both times.

  King was released in that case because, under the SAFE-T Act, aggravated battery of a police officer does not qualify for pretrial detention unless the officer suffers great bodily harm.

What a great exception to the Aggravated Battery statute.

In the meantime, how about we go with "Truth in Sentencing" laws, gut the un-SAFE-T Act, and lose a few judges on the way to restoring Law and Order.