Twenty six arrests boggles the mind

Kudos should — and did — go Jose Santiago for his role in combating a violent criminal while working at a Subway sandwich shop in Des Plaines. Not to take away from Mr. Santiago's chivalry, but the point that really caught this reader's attention was the fact that the suspect had been arrested 27 times before, according to Police Chief Jim Prandini.

Now, we've all made mistakes and often times a second chance is very much in order. But 26 second chances? Did I read that right? That's stretching it even for the most magnanimous of folks. It got me thinking ... so I decided to check the record just for kicks. According to an unverified Wikipedia source, there's a guy who had been arrested 937 times as of January 2007.

Back to the suspect. This is not a protest against the Des Plaines Police Department and certainly not one against Mr. Prandini himself, but how in the world does a person get arrested and freed that many times? The police chief even hinted at the pertinent and obvious question when he said, “He [the suspect] shouldn't be walking the streets.” Why was he walking the streets? Something's broke and it needs to be fixed.

With a newly elected group of representatives in Washington, perhaps part of their agendas should be to address this issue and others like it. After 26 times of seeing the same violent, abusive pattern, we can't claim to be surprised this happened. And, sooner or later, there's going to be a more tragic and lethal ending to this story.

Justin Lee

Lombard