Horowitz: Chicago releases the most violent offenders to commit the exact same crimes

What happens when you let career violent criminals out on little or no bail with no fear of punishment for violating their terms of release? In a dystopian hell like Chicago, that means an individual released after being charged with punching a woman in the face and kicking a cop in the groin will be rearrested for … punching a woman in the face and kicking a cop in the groin. Oh, and another sex offender released on charges of molesting multiple women will be rearrested for … molesting another woman!

At a time when the FBI and DHS are spying on political opponents with no criminal records as if they are violent criminals, known violent criminals are released to repeat the worst crimes again. Let’s meet James Killingsworth, a career criminal who was arrested right before Christmas 2020 for stealing a woman’s phone on a Chicago street and then kicking the arresting cop in the groin. The prosecution later linked him to a robbery a few days earlier in which he punched a woman in the face in broad daylight and stole her phone. One would think that aggravated battery of a peace officer, theft, attempted robbery, and aggravated battery in a public place would put him away for a while, but when he reported to prison on October 19, 2022, he was released on the same day because of good time credits and time served.

Fast-forward just six days later, and Killingsworth was arrested on October 25 for punching a woman at a transit station and then kicking the arresting officer in the groin, according to CWB Chicago. De ja vu! This case would be one for the books even if the system finally locked him up, but it gets worse. The Illinois Department of Corrections refused to charge him with a parole violation, and the judge released him on just $12,000 bail!

Contrast this with military veterans with no criminal records who are still serving two years pretrial without any chance for bail for charges that don’t even allege touching a police officer or punching someone in the face.

What about sexual assault? Surely the system would give those perps the “January 6 treatment,” right? Wrong! Meet David Buckner, the terror of Chicago transit, courtesy of CWB Chicago reporting:

In June, a prosecutor in the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office refused to file felony charges against Buckner after two women accused him of licking, kissing, squeezing, and groping them on the Magnificent Mile. With felony charges denied, Chicago police had to charge Buckner with misdemeanor battery. He was released from jail a few days later to await trial.

On October 9, while he was still on bail for the June allegations, two more women accused Buckner of touching them inappropriately at the Roosevelt CTA station. He walked out of the local Chicago police station a few hours later on his own recognizance, charged only with misdemeanor battery again. Records that would show if prosecutors rejected felony charges for the new allegations have not been posted in public records.

Then, just before 2 p.m. Wednesday, while still on bail for the June and October cases, he allegedly assaulted an 18-year-old woman on the Loyola campus, not far from the Red Line station.

He grabbed the woman’s body and her left butt cheek, prosecutor Jeff Allen said. Once again, Buckner is only charged with a misdemeanor.

Despite the multiple bail violations and arrests for serious crimes, Judge Kelly McCarthy ordered Buckner to pay just a $5,000 deposit toward bail in the Loyola case and $3,000 in the June case until Buckner sees the judge overseeing that matter on Monday. It turns out that in 2017, he was accused by a list of women for grotesque sexual offenses in the subways. The Chicago Tribune reported at the time that prosecutors said Buckner admitted to “probably” molesting 75 women. Yet a week before Thanksgiving of last year, when he was charged for violating the terms of the sex offender registry, he was released on his own recognizance because of an insanity plea.

This is the two-tiered justice we have in America. This is why the streets are full of violent criminals who will commit endless violent crimes for years to come. Think about all the violent criminal who used to be locked up during the “tough on crime” era who are now out. Those people need to be behind bars.

This chart from the New York Times shows the dangers on the streets in one chart:

The Left is celebrating the fact that the black incarceration rate has been nearly cut in half over the past generation and are calling for even more prison releases. However, when you measure the body count of thousands of excess black homicide victims over the past few years, you realize that this is nothing to celebrate. The reality is that among the black population, unfortunately, are a disproportionate share of violent criminals, usually tied to gangs. They are not in prison at higher numbers because of low-level crimes or drug crimes, but for violent crimes. According to the FBI’s crime data explorer, roughly 60% of the homicide offenders in 2021 whose race was known were black.

Any effort to go soft on prison sentences of career criminals out of concern for black prison rates – a sentiment too many Republicans have bought into over the past decade – will necessarily result in harming black victims of crime more than anyone else. Almost 60% of the homicide victims in 2021 were also black.

It’s no longer enough for Republicans to run ads complaining about crime and promising to “fund the police.” They need to promise mandatory minimums for violent and repeat offenders, toughening penalties for bail, parole, and probation violations, targeting gangs, and a legitimate three-strikes-and-you’re-out law.

While one can debate the degree of punishment to mete out to lower-level criminals, the street crimes we are witnessing in America’s major cities are being committed by those whom both parties used to deem a threat and support taking off the streets. Yet now we live in a world where Democrat Governors like Kathy Hochul in New York don’t understand why it’s so important to lock these people up. Hopefully, Republicans have finally learned their lesson and will pursue criminal justice reform in the exact opposite way they did this past decade and save their desire for grace and leniency for those targeted for political crimes.