Chicago City Wire

Chicago’s Morning Answer co-host Amy Jacobson told listeners about her visit to Jesus “Chuy” Garcia’s headquarters to ask him about his son. 

Garcia’s son, 39-year-old, Samuel Garcia has been called “a neighborhood menace” for engaging in gang life as a member of the Gangster Two Six Nation. He has been arrested several times for gang activities as a member of Two-Six.

“He still lives with his dad. He's registered to vote at the same address where his father lives at 25th Street in Little Village,” Jacobson said. “It must be hard. I'm lucky I don't have gangbanging kids. He's a 39-year-old man. So I went to his campaign headquarters. They were having a rally and a march, which they never ended up marching. Yeah, because I was there. But I walked in and I was trying to just ask him about this question. How can people trust you to curb violence when you can't control your own household? I know it's kind of a policy question, but I didn't get far because I was boxed out, pushed. They put an old lady in front of me. They knew I was in. As soon as I walked in, everybody got tensed up. Yeah. And this one lady came up to me and she said, I don't know who you are, but they are blanking their pants that you're in this room. And when I walked in here, they told me, Do not talk to her.” 

Jacobson said there were three men in front of him.

“Not only that, he is the easiest politician to bribe," she said. Let's just take back to the red light cameras.”

Jacobson’s comments came after Garcia sought to try to change the narrative on his son by releasing an ad after a week of onslaught from critics. Garcia admits his son's involvement in a gang lifestyle in the recent advertisement but doesn’t provide details. Instead, in the ad Garcia said he “nearly lost my son to the gangs.” Chicago City Wire published a piece on the congressmen’s 39-year-old son, Samuel R. Garcia, who has long terrorized the congressman’s district and neighborhood near the congressman's home on 25th Street in the Little Village neighborhood. The younger Garcia was caught illegally possessing a gun in 2021 after a shooting was reported. He was charged with felony aggravated use of a weapon but was able to evade charges. In two incidents Samuel Garcia allegedly attacked police officers. His father’s influence has helped him obtain top-flight legal representation from some of the city’s largest law firms.

Garcia has also been connected to Sam Bankman-Fried, the indicted former CEO of the crypto exchange FTX. According to WBEZ, the congressman took $2,900 from Bankman-Fried and another $1,000 from a Bankman-Fried-aligned PAC. In addition, he was the beneficiary of $200,000 worth of campaign mailers sent out by a Bankman-Fried PAC.

Also, despite saying he would rid the city of red light cameras in 2015 when running against Rahm Emmanuel, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Garcia took a campaign donation from a man later connected to a bribery scheme in which he would pay off public officials. “Let's go back to the red light camera deal that was in the paper over this weekend, the same company that was illegally bribing public officials,” Lightfoot said in a recent interview. “That's a person that he took a campaign donation from and then the very next day cast a decisive, decisive vote for them to be able to get a contract with Cook County.”