Just look at what has happened over the past two weeks:
- Mayor Brandon Johnson abruptly fired his Deputy Mayor for Public Safety. When asked about it, the former aide said the mayor’s office had shown “hostility” toward law enforcement.
- New reporting by The Free Press found that millions of taxpayer dollars are being funneled into so-called “violence interruption” programs with little accountability and questionable results.
- Sheridan Gorman, an 18-year-old college student, was tragically killed by an illegal immigrant.
- To make matters worse, just days after that tragedy, Mayor Johnson unveiled an “Abolish ICE” snow plow in a tone-deaf political stunt.
- As spring break gets underway, chaos broke out once again in downtown Chicago, where a teen takeover last night led to fights and open taunting of law enforcement.
Coming off recent remarks from Mayor Johnson, who called law enforcement a “sickness,” and Governor Pritzker, who referred to federal law enforcement as “jackbooted thugs,” the past two weeks have only confirmed what many Illinois families already fear: there is no real support for law enforcement at the top in Chicago or Illinois.
At the same time, failed policies like the Illinois Way Forward Act and the SAFE-T Act continue to make the problem worse and fuel more chaos in our communities.
House Republicans are stepping up with real solutions to address Illinois’ public safety crisis. We have filed more than 40 bills to fix the SAFE-T Act, yet most of those proposals have not even been called for a hearing.
Lives are at stake. It is time for Democrats to get serious about public safety.