Authorities in Chicago are wearing egg on their faces as Fox News is reporting that “Dozens of felons who were released on bond in Chicago have been re-arrested this year for violent crimes.”
The news came as the Daily Mail reported Mayor Lori Lightfoot “pleaded with Attorney General Merrick Garland…to send Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents to the city for six months after the city reaches a 25-year high in the number of murders.”
The Windy City has topped 800 homicides this year, and more are likely to come as the bloody year winds down. The city is experiencing a wave of crime, from murders to smash-and-grab robberies. This comes after the city engaged in an effort to defund the police. The Daily Mail recalled Lightfoot “proposed slashing $80 million from the Chicago Police Department budget in 2020 during ‘defund the police’ protests.” However, the New York Post reported Lightfoot said she opposes efforts to defund the police.
But she can’t have it both ways and with street criminals enjoying the chaos, now the far-left Democrat mayor wants help. Apparently she just wants someone else to pay for it.
Fox Business is reporting that the crime wave is “affecting businesses and restaurants across the city.” Small business owners want action. Lightfoot wants help.
CWB Chicago focused on one suspected criminal recidivist identified as Malik Perteet. Earlier this year, he was charged with felony gun possession after he was allegedly involved in a gas station gun battle that left an 11-year-old girl dead because she was caught in the crossfire. Perteet was reportedly wounded in that gunfight, but instead of going to jail, he was released after posting $7,500 bail and fitted with an ankle monitor.
Two months later, the report added, Perteet was charged with a drug violation. There was no bail in that beef, and he was soon back on the street, again with the monitor. But now he’s been charged in another crime, the attempted murder of a teenage girl, while he was on the monitor and awaiting trial on the earlier charges.
According to CWB Chicago, Perteet is “the 60th person accused of killing, trying to kill, or shooting someone in Chicago this year while awaiting trial for a felony.”
As reported at Heyjackass.com, Chicago has seen more than 780 gunshot homicides so far this year, including more than 40 this month. More than 3,600 people have been shot and wounded.
But considering rampant crime and rising murders across the country, the question rises about whether Lightfoot and other big city mayors in whose cities crime has gone up as support for law enforcement dwindled should share in the blame.
Perhaps Lightfoot should follow the lead of San Francisco Mayor London Breed, who days ago held a press briefing to announce a crackdown effort on crime in her city’s Tenderloin District, promising to end the “bulls—t that has destroyed our city.”
Critics may wonder if, in both Chicago and San Francisco, the mayors are the proverbial day late and millions of dollars short.
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San Fran Mayor Breed Calls ‘Bulls—t’ on Crime