Story 2 for the Safe-T Act

 

Now to be fair, they supposedly fixed this problem with a rider bill, but I think it illuminates a couple of key concepts of the people that proposed and who support this bill.  It also demonstrates that no law enforcement practitioners were consulted in the creation of the monstrosity.  What drives me totally nuts is that I am part of a profession that is totally data-tracked and data-driven.  You can go to my department tomorrow and FOIA every arrest that I have initiated in my 25-year career and also get each arrestee's demographics, which is something you can do at every department for every officer that has ever served since 1970.  So when there is a belief that cops are just running around using the obstruction of a peace officer charge to either discriminate, rehabilitate, or just for "s and g's," where is the proof?  Mine the data, show the misuse and make corrections, but instead, on the backs of some antidotal stories and anti-police agenda in which the truth does not matter, this section of the Safe-T act came to be.

What they proposed was to eliminate our ability to charge obstruction to a police officer as a single stand-alone charge.  Still, rather they attempted to have an arrestable criminal act that was committed first, and then we could charge obstruction if we had the elements that fit the statute.  What they kept in was we cannot charge resisting arrest if we did first have an arrestable charge that preceded the resisting.  This proof was no prosecutors or police were part of the bill.  You already cannot charge resisting arrest without a criminal act first being committed.  They can't be arrested without first committing a criminal act.  If anyone in my area tried that, it wouldn't have made it past the first court date, and the assistant state's attorney would have called the chief about it.  So they solved a non-problem.  What they were trying to address was the situation in which, let's say, a retail theft charge, an officer attempts to take the offender into custody and resists the arrests.  Later in court, the offender beats the retail theft but is convicted of resisting arrest.  This happens frequently, and I had more than a couple of public defenders argue that he can't resist arrest for a crime he didn't commit.  They always lost that argument because he/she did spin around and tried to punch me in the face in order to get away.  Lossing the original charge didn't change the fact that the offender was attempting to injure or kill the officer to get away.

So here is the story, and this happens often.  Adult mother lives with her adult son and his wife.  The adult son is beating his wife in their back bedroom.  She gets away from him long enough to call 911.  We arrive and find mom standing in the doorway, braced, trying to keep us out. Meanwhile, we can hear the blows raining down on the wife.  Now my ability to make physical contact with another is because I can prove that either I have a detainable offense or articulable claim of health and safety for another.  So in these cases, we warn the mother to move or be arrested.  She does not move, so the first officer takes her into custody for obstruction of a peace officer, and the rest run in to save the wife and arrest her husband.  Now, if you take my ability to arrest solely for obstruction away, what criminal act did she also commit?  There is not one, and the mother is not attempting to harm herself, so I cannot use that reason to make contact with her.  If this had been carried through in the bill, I would still grabbed the mother and moved her out of the way, run in and saved the wife, and charged the husband.  Then later, the state police would have come to the station and arrest me for the battery to the mother since I did not have a legal justification to make physical contact with her...this is how screwed up the bill really is.  

It would have prevented us from removing anyone from our crime scenes, standing at our car door to keep us from exiting the squad and going to the incident, would have allowed the public to keep us inside or outside of any building, and the other thousand of problems it would have created.  When this section was presented for the first time in roll call, the entire room understood the ramifications and the absolute gift it would have been to street gang members and criminals.  But none of this occurred to the writers and supporters, but the criminals certainly knew (a bunch arrested told us they could not wait until January 1, 2023, when we couldn't do anything to them anymore).

One of my sayings has always been, "There are two ways to fight crime, fighting crime or not finding crime" not finding crime is always celebrated as a crime reduction and a budget-friendly act.  Had this gone through, they would have celebrated the reduction of obstruction charges as lowering the crime rate, proving we were abusing the charge, and overlooking all the new unnecessary victims. 

Story One of the Safe-T Act

 

This fine young gentleman had a hammer in his backpack and walked down Golf Rd, breaking out the back windows of multiple cars.  He hit Schaumburg for 80 different cars, and what the article does not mention, he also hit our town for at least 60 more (business parking lots), that we know of; a lot of the owners didn't bother to report it since there will never be restitution made.  So this is where the current system succeeded.  He could not post bail and had to stay in lockup for the weekend until he could attend bond court.  He could have been charged with at least 140 Criminal Damages to Property-all felonies.  He is only 20 years old and has a serious criminal history.  When he was staying with us, he was unable to victimize anyone else, at least for the weekend.  He, of course, was immediately released without having to post bond on electronic monitoring, when he got to bond court.  So he is now free to go berserk once more.  He is also extremely mentally ill, but since he refused all offers of aid and did not say in any officer's presence that he was going to kill himself, no one could compel him into the hospital for mental evaluation (a discussion for another time).

Had this occurred after January 1, 2023, we could not have held on to him.  The second he was captured and processed, he would have to be released and given a notification to go to court.  The number of victims does not come into account, and worse yet, this would be considered a non-violent crime since it is CDP.  He then would have the ability to go take out another 80 cars, be arrested, bonded out, rinse and repeat over and over.  One of the falsehoods that supporters of this bill are saying is that we have the ability to contact the on-call emergency judge and get a writ and hold him over for a pre-trail hearing.  The problem in Cook County District 3, is good luck in getting a hold of that judge; in emergency situations in the past (homocide, kidnapping, and sexual assault), we have sent a car to his/her home to wake them up.  Are we going to do that for a property crime?  It is a non-violent crime, and the judge, knowing that at the pretrail hearing, he will be immediately released on electronic monitoring (will discuss the 24 grace period with that later).  Further, how long can we hold onto a prisoner, where he is eligible for release, to dig up a judge and get the paperwork completed to hold him?  I see a lawsuit right there, "officer, you could have released my client immediately after processing, but you determined he was a threat to the public, so you held him for two hours in order to contact a judge?"  What if the judge doesn't grant it?  Then I illegally detained him for an extra two hours?  There is literally no process in place to address this.  So what are the perimeters to get him held, 80 cars, 140 cars, 2000 cars?  How many victims are needed before his supposed injustice of not being able to post bond is overcome?

Here is a brief list (and certainly not complete) of some of the extreme crimes that they will be immediately released:

Aggravated Battery

Aggravated DUI

Aggravated Fleeing and Eluding

Arson

Burglary

Drug-Induced Homicide

Intimidation

Kidnapping

Robbery

2nd Degree Murder

Threatening a Public Official

Nearly All Drug Offenses

The question is still in place how many of these crimes must be committed in a row before we can take the risk of holding a prisoner that could normally immediately hit the street, how long do we have, and what the point if even we get that writ, he goes to bond and is immediately released on electronic monitoring.

Safe-T act is only about making it safer for offenders to make new victims.

                                                 Back because of Safe-T

Between trying to finish my Ph.D. program, being in a new position of Crime Free Multi-Housing Coordinator which has being a event coordinator as part of it (20 days on, one day off, 10 of which were 12+ hour days) and being on the edge of promotion, I have let this blog rest.  It would take quite the push to get me back to regularly posting again, and that push is the, signed into law in 2021 by Governor Pritzker, the Illinois Safe-T Act...it is that bad.

Before I post a series of short stories that should illuminate just how foolish and dangerous this legislation is, I think it would be a good start to outline the philosophical stance that the proponents of this law have taken.  The biases of this and other legislation like it ( in committee are laws banning the use of criminal background checks in tenant applications, the removal of all SRO's from public schools, the removal of stand your ground and changing the use of force from stopping threat to equal force (he has a knife I can't shoot him I have to use a force equal to his knife)) is their view on criminality or how criminals are created.

The position is simple, they believe you can never be a criminal or a person that commits criminal acts without that criminal first having been a victim themselves.  It is a view of humanity that has us all as naturally good and evil only occurs as a result of personal trauma.  Thus the focus is in addressing their victimhood and once that is accomplished then they stop being a criminal.  They plan on getting to the criminal's victims at a later date.  So they see the criminal justice system and the agents that implement it as victimizers of the victims (criminals).  This is the way no cash bail came into affect.  The criminal cannot control themselves and thus shouldn't have to pay a penalty for committing their criminal acts.  It is unfair that a rich criminal should get right back to the streets and the poor criminal have to wait until their trial.  This can further be seen in the total lack of coverage of the victims in the press (Labor day week end 2022, Chicago, 55 shot 11 fatally-name one of them), while a potentially questionable act of one officer (of the 900,000 of us nation wide) is national news-we are victimizers or the victims.  This is the 24hr holiday from electronic monitoring that they are granted before even potentially being violated-why should a victim have his or her daily routine changed.  This is the reason for drastically reducing or eliminating jail sentences.  This is the constant move to allow more expungements (they did not mean to do it).  I can go on and on and on.

In further posts I will outline different acts of this bill, but it does make sense if you see it from their philosophical stand point-one that will do nothing but create hundreds of real victims in a flawed and deeply foolish position.

 

 

This is dedicated to every person that has served in law enforcement with honor and sacrifice.  Your good deeds, dedication to justice, service to your communities, and your aid rendered to victims will never be forgotten.  We may never know individually who each and everyone who has served and your individual deeds, but each municipality would no longer exist without your good works, each and every city is your living memorial.  (The acknowledge page of my hopefully completed before end of the year dissertation)