Chicago City Wire

Chicago police are trying to determine the real reason activist Cook County Judge Linda Pauel ordered the release of a 14-year-old boy arrested for the shooting of two men in Uptown last Monday.

Pauel ordered the release of the boy to his mother on Friday over prosecutors’ requests that he be detained, and when that was denied, that he be placed on electronic monitoring.

But the mother never picked the child up. At a hearing held earlier today, Pauel then ordered the child to remain in custody for his safety and his family’s safety.

Judge Linda Pauel | Youtube

“The FOP wants to know what truly happened in this case,” police union spokesman Marty Preib told Chicago City Wire.

Pauel, a lesbian and outspoken gay rights activist, argued that the boy was held two hours longer than the 40 hours the law allows police to hold a minor. She also maintained that the boy was not brought before a judicial officer within 24 hours, another violation of the law.

But the CPD told CWBChicago that it denied Pauel’s claim – made by the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office – that any procedural laws covering minors were violated.

“The interrogation and arrest lasted 21 hours and 44 minutes,” CWBChicago quoted a CPD spokesman as saying. “The boy was then transferred to Cook County custody.”

A police department source also said that the boy had an outstanding warrant, which alone should have been enough for the judge to order him held.

The boy was charged with two felony counts of attempted first-degree murder and felony aggravated battery in the shooting of the two men on the CTA Argyle Red Line platform during evening rush hour. The police said that a 34-year-old man is in critical condition. The other man, a 41-year-old, declined treatment for a minor injury. Police believe the two were targeted in a gang related hit.

Yesterday, the FOP’s Preib wrote in the police blog The Watch that “rumors abounded [last week] that Cook County State’s Attorney Kimberly Foxx, already under fire for her decision not to prosecute Jussie Smollett, disbanded the prosecutor’s Drug Unit.”

Preib said that the highly respected unit was critical in “getting dangerous criminals off the street, particularly gang members.”

For her part, Pauel is a close ally of deposed socialist alderman John Arena.

In 2010, she told the Windy City Times: "I am not someone who enjoys being in the spotlight." Yet she tried to be a judge for the better part of a decade.

In 2013, she told the Windy City Times that she served on the boards of “Equality Illinois and The Civil Rights Agenda, which aim to secure the rights of LGBT people. I was a mentor at Walter Payton [College Prep's] gay-straight alliance. I was a co-founder of a group of gay attorneys.”

In an undated post in The Lavender Menace, Chicago’s Lesbian Blog, writer Katharine Winfrey-King wrote of Pauel: “This time, I intend to arrive at the polls armed with knowledge and substantiated opinions. Perhaps you have heard of Linda Pauel, candidate for Cook County Circuit Court Judge. She has been actively getting out to court the lesbian vote and is wildly popular amongst the Chicago lesbos.”

Pauel was first appointed as associate judge in April 2014 and was reappointed in 2015. Her term expires on June 30.