Chicago City Wire

Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown argues there’s plenty of blame to go around for the city’s runaway crime rate, with state prosecutors and courts being a major part of the problem.

"There are too many violent offenders and too little consequences in our courts," Brown said in a video posted to YouTube by ABC 7.  "There are too many illegal guns in our city and too little consequences in the courts. I would say the reason why we're seeing so many mass shootings, we have strong advocacy in the courts for offenders and very little for victims."

Brown voiced his outrage just prior to a bloody Fourth of July holiday weekend where more than 100 people were hit by gunfire across the city, at least 16 of them fatally, marking the most violent weekend of the year so far in the city.

"It's a violent crime wave in this country that has been going on, carried over from 2020," Brown said, pointing out that homicide rates in New York, Los Angeles and Houston are also on the rise.

Brown’s theory about city violence being excacerbated by lenient bond guidelines has received the backing of Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot. The two further contend the situation has only grown worse during the era of COVID-19.

"Our criminal courts have been shut down for 15 months,” Lightfoot told ABC 7 News. “They need to reopen. And we need to see the wheels of justice moving for our victims and their families."

Brown added, "The fact that over 90 people charged with murder have been released by our courts, back into the community does two things. Number one, it creates this idea of lawlessness for people in the community who know someone murdered someone, and yet there they see him again, the following days, as if nothing happened. Secondly, because these people murdered someone, the victim and their associates retaliate indiscriminately of where they are."

Those opposed to Brown and Lightfoot’s logic are quick to point out all the data is on their side.

Chief Judge Timothy Evans recently pointed to a Loyola University study that concluded an increase in the number of people released pretrial "was not associated with any significant change in new criminal activity, violent or otherwise, and was not associated with any change in the amount of crime in Chicago after 2017."

In a statement, Evans said "speculation based on isolated cases is not the same as reality based on a complete picture."

Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx weighed in: "Finger-pointing instead of talking honestly about the violence plaguing our city doesn't help bring solutions that make our communities safe.”