The city of Chicago has a crime problem. Everyone knows it, including Chicago's mayor, Brandon Johnson, and Illinois Governor JB Pritzker.
Pritzker himself said crime is just a part of big city life, just after a bloody Labor Day weekend where 54 people were shot and seven were killed. Mayor Johnson took a more theological approach, saying jailing criminals is "racist, unholy and doesn’t lower violent crime rates."
That was on August 25, a week before all the mayhem in Chicago. We're now halfway through September, and Mayor Johnson continues to object to putting criminals in prison.
CHICAGO MAYOR: "Jails & law enforcement is a sickness that has not led to safe communities." pic.twitter.com/FOjwHtZrkT
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) September 19, 2025
As one X user said, "Imagine saying that to the families of officers killed in the line of duty. Police aren’t the sickness."
In Washington, DC, President Trump's push to stop crime has, in fact, reduced crime. The nation's capital saw a stretch of at least ten days with zero homicides.
Yesterday, we told you about a "peacekeeper" named Kellen McMiller who posed for a pic with Governor Pritzker a few days before McMiller was allegedly part of a smash-and-grab on Chicago's Michigan Avenue that killed 40-year-old father-to-be Mark Arceta.
Instead of addressing crime in his city, Mayor Johnson has chosen to blame red states -- like Illinois' neighbor, Indiana -- and their gun laws for Chicago's violence, saying, "These guns come from red states. They are coming from Indiana. They are coming from Mississippi. They are coming from Louisiana. And that is the harsh reality, whether Republicans like it or not."
Data from the Bureau for Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) shows guns recovered in the state in 2023 overwhelmingly come from Illinois, proving Johnson is either misinformed or lying.
As Vice President Vance pointed out the other day, crime is not systemic. It is due to a small group of repeat offenders. As City Journal noted, "Violent crime is heavily concentrated in a relatively few individuals. In general, 5 percent of the criminal offenders (not 5 percent of the general population) in a given city commit about 50 percent of that city’s violent crime. One study found that just 1 percent of offenders were responsible for over 60 percent of violent crime."
It is painfully obvious, however, that Democrats like Mayor Johnson have no intention of cracking down on crime any time soon.