(CHICAGO) — Following the shooting death of Chicago Police Officer John Bartholomew, two prominent Chicagoans are speaking out.
Former Ald. Bob Fioretti and former Police Chief of Riverside Tom Weitzel have released a joint statement on the tragic killing of Bartholomew:
“Media reports say the offender, who was transported to Swedish American Hospital by the officers after being arrested for robbery, has a long criminal record with convictions for several serious and violent crimes that should have kept him in prison for many more years. The offender was released on electronic monitoring after his arrest on yet another serious charge, with four violent felonies pending. Judge John Lykes specifically cited the SAFE-T ACT in his decision to not detain Alphanso Talley. If not for the SAFE-T ACT, the life-long criminal would have been in jail, not free to hunt for his next victim, who tragically in this case was Officer Bartholomew and his partner.
The bottom line is the inaptly named SAFE-T-ACT and the coddle-the-criminal crowd failed us again. On many levels. It doesn’t have to be this way.
Last week, we announced the formation of “The Fioretti Commission on Safe-T Act Reform,” chaired by Chief Weitzel, to advocate common sense reforms to this disastrous law. While the SAFE-T ACT should never have been passed, and realistically with the political make-up of the legislature, cannot be reversed, we can come up with fixes that people of good-will of every party can agree to.
Most importantly, we must reverse the current philosophy of the Illinois Democratic Party that ‘the criminals are the good guys, law enforcement are the bad guys, and the victims just don’t matter.”
