Bailey calls for SAFE-T Act repeal after Chicago officer's fatal shooting

Republican governor candidate Darren Bailey repeated his call for the repeal of the SAFE-T Act ending cash bail and introduced a plan Thursday he said would prevent criminals from “slipping through the cracks.”

The proposal is named for Chicago police officer John Bartholomew, who was fatally shot Saturday at Endeavor Swedish Hospital on the city’s North Side by a robbery suspect.

“This wasn’t just a tragedy, it was preventable,” Bailey said at a news conference outside the state Capitol.

Chicagoan Alphanso Talley, 26, is charged with Bartholomew’s murder and the attempted murder of his partner, who was critically wounded.

“This was not a one-time offender,” the former state senator from downstate Xenia said. “This was a repeat violent criminal. He violated electronic monitoring, he was a parole absconder … and yet the state of Illinois let him walk.”

Talley’s record includes aggravated battery of a police officer, stolen vehicle, robbery and firearms convictions.

Bailey joins a number of Republicans including Senate Minority Leader John Curran and DuPage County State’s Attorney Robert Berlin who’ve blasted provisions of the SAFE-T Act recently and sought reforms.

Downers Grove Republican Curran filed legislation Wednesday that would require a person who is arrested for a felony while on pretrial release and electronic monitoring to be held until the charges are resolved.

“Any society where killing law enforcement is not taken seriously is not a functioning, safe, democratic society,” Curran said at a briefing.

Bailey’s proposal seeks to tighten pretrial detention standards and also fix loopholes in the electronic monitoring system. He and running mate Aaron Del Mar of Palatine said they have not finalized who the legislative sponsors will be.

When the SAFE-T Act was passed, Gov. JB Pritzker said it rectified a system that allowed violent criminals with money to bail themselves out while nonviolent offenders without means stayed in jail.

“One of the great things about the SAFE-T Act is we give judges the ability to say, ‘No, you’re not going to get bail, you are going to stay in jail.’ And, also to make the decision that someone who’s committed a nonviolent offense doesn’t have to come up with $500 or $1,000 that they might have otherwise had to to get bail,” he said Wednesday.

Pritzker called the police shooting a tragedy, but added, “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 in Illinois, or no hearing at all because the prosecutor didn’t bring it to the judge, and that is the reason somebody gets out.

“What played a role here, was that the judge who had the ability to keep the person in jail — didn’t.”