It’s no secret that Chicago, like many major U.S. cities, has suffered from an unprecedented spike in homicides and non-fatal shootings over the last two years. Despite seeing record low homicide rates between 2004 and 2015, Chicago residents are now experiencing violent crime at levels unseen in decades—including truly horrific surges in gun violence during 2020 and 2021.
One important factor driving this violence is the failed leadership of Chicago’s mayor and city council, particularly their general lack of support for the Chicago Police Department. Chicago’s progressive prosecutors have exacerbated this problem by routinely allowing violent offenders to run amok without any meaningful consequences.
And yet, when I attempted to diagnose this problem at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on gun violence in Chicago held earlier this week, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., twice interrupted my testimony.
The testimony Durbin didn’t want the committee or the nation to hear? A well-publicized story from early October in which gang members lit up a residential Chicago neighborhood with gunfire on a Friday, only to be inexplicably released without charges by Monday.
It seems that Durbin was more interested in using Chicago residents as political pawns than in understanding why Chicago’s criminals feel free to shoot whomever they want without fearing consequences.