Officer's death sparks new SAFE-T Act proposal

The shooting death of Chicago police officer John Bartholomew has brought new attention to the state's bail reform law, and a new proposed change from Republicans who say the SAFE-T Act is not working as Democrats promised it would.

Authorities say the suspect in the April 25 shooting at Swedish Hospital that killed Officer Bartholomew and critically injured his partner was out of jail on electronic monitoring at the time, despite having a violent criminal record.

Republicans in Illinois have long claimed that the SAFE-T Act has been a factor in violent offenders being released and committing more crimes, and the new proposal in Springfield would mandate detention for any criminal suspect who's accused of committing a violent crime while on an ankle monitor.

State Senate Republican leader and Downers Grove-area lawmaker John Curran says the proposal is a "common sense" change to the bail-reform law.

"Letting violent offenders out over and over again to commit more violent crimes isn't creating less prisoners," Sen. Curran (R-41st District) said during a virtual availability with reporters. "It's creating more victims, and more chaos."

During an appearance on Chicago's Far South side, Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker said he had not seen details of the Republicans' proposal, but defended provisions of one of his signature legislative achievements.

"In most of the cases where Republicans have complained about the SAFE-T Act, it's actually been a bad decision by an elected judge," the governor told reporters. "A judge should have made the decision to keep that person in jail."

The shooting has also brought new criticism of Cook County's electronic monitoring program, which State's Attorney Eileen O'Neill Burke has called "broken."

"What she said is fundamentally accurate," the governor said, adding that potentially violent defendants should not be released into the community.

"It's a tragedy what's happened," said the governor.