admin
A brutal, unprovoked assault aboard a Chicago Transit Authority Blue Line train left a young woman fighting for her life after a man allegedly doused her with gasoline and set her on fire, shocking commuters and shattering any illusion that public transit is immune from violent crime. Federal prosecutors have since moved aggressively, charging 50-year-old Lawrence Reed with terrorism against a mass transportation system as investigators laid out a long criminal history and repeated interactions with mental-health and criminal-justice systems.
Instead of meeting that horror with the kind of blunt accountability citizens demand, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson publicly called the attack “an isolated incident” while urging more state funding for mental-health and transit programs — language that reads like a political reflex to avoid blame rather than a plan to protect riders. His comments left families and commuters cold, especially after reports showed the suspect had dozens of prior arrests and had been out on pretrial release when he allegedly struck again.
Conservative voices, led by Sean Hannity on his program, rightly called out Mayor Johnson’s dismissive framing and demanded he stop treating carnage as a one-off and start treating it like the symptom of failed policies it is. This wasn’t a freak accident; it was the predictable outcome of a city that tolerates repeat offenders, lets dangerous people slip through the cracks, and prizes optics over enforcement while everyday citizens pay the price.
Patriotic Americans should demand straightforward solutions: restore real accountability to the criminal-justice process, expand true enforcement on transit property, and use every tool necessary — including federal assistance and targeted deployments where local leaders refuse to act — to make riders safe again. Union leaders and transit-watchers have even called for National Guard-style support and stepped-up security on trains, because words like “invest” and “study” won’t heal burned victims or stop the next attack; action will.
