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A terrified young woman was reportedly set on fire while riding a Chicago Transit Authority train, a savage attack that should wake every parent and commuter in this city up to the reality that public safety is collapsing on our watch. Officials say a person of interest was taken into custody after the attack, but the damage and fear inflicted on everyday riders cannot be undone with platitudes.
Even more infuriating are the reports that this alleged attacker had a long rap sheet and had been under electronic monitoring — a system that, in practice, often amounts to a slap on the wrist when judges and bureaucrats refuse to keep dangerous people behind bars. Court records and local reporting suggest judges modified monitoring terms and allowed daytime freedom that directly undercut any protective value the ankle device was supposed to provide. We see yet again how soft-on-crime policies and bureaucratic tinkering cost innocent people their safety.
Instead of facing hard truths, Mayor Brandon Johnson and his allies want to tell Chicagoans this horrifying episode is merely an “isolated incident” and not a trend worth confronting, an answer that reads like denial dressed up as governance. Those in charge would have us accept risk as the new normal while they worry about optics and progressive talking points. The job of leaders is to protect citizens first — not to minimize violence so they can avoid accountability.
Now is not the time for more experiments that leave victims exposed; it is the time for tough, commonsense action — immediate revocation of lenient release orders for chronic violent offenders, mandatory detention for those with repeated violent charges, and expedited mental-health commitment for the dangerously unwell. Electronic monitors that depend on judge discretion are no substitute for real consequences; when people rack up dozens of arrests and still roam the streets, something in the system has failed repeatedly and spectacularly. Law-abiding Chicagoans pay taxes and obey the law; they deserve a justice system that treats repeat violent offenders as the public threat they are.
We should also welcome federal involvement where local systems have been hollowed out by soft-on-crime policies, and we should demand a federal pathway to secure transit that includes funding for increased police presence, improved surveillance, and hardened security at key stations. When violent criminals are slipping through court cracks that local officials refuse to seal, federal resources and prosecutions can provide the backstop Chicago desperately needs. Recent reporting noted federal charges and interventions in related cases, a reminder that Washington can and must step in when city leaders won’t do their jobs.
Let’s stop pretending piecemeal programs or feel-good reforms will protect moms, kids, and commuters who simply want to get to work and home alive. The city’s elimination of tools like ShotSpotter and its tolerance for leniency have consequences for everyday safety, and those consequences are now playing out on our transit lines. Leaders who chase ideology over safety should be called out, held responsible at the ballot box, and replaced with people who put crime victims first.
Hardworking Americans in Chicago and across this country are not asking for utopia; they are asking for safety, respect for the rule of law, and a government that prioritizes them over pet progressive experiments. If politicians keep downplaying brutal attacks and protecting offenders with soft policies, voters must respond with fury at the polls and demand policies that restore order. It’s time to put public safety back where it belongs — at the very top of the priority list.
