Staff Reports
A horrific attack on a Chicago transit train has exposed the deadly consequences of soft-on-crime policies that allow repeat offenders to roam free. On November 17, 2025, 26-year-old Bethany MaGee was doused with gasoline and set ablaze by 50-year-old Lawrence Reed while she sat minding her own business on a Blue Line train near the Clark and Lake station. Surveillance footage captured Reed filling a bottle at a gas station before pouring the accelerant on her, chasing her down the car, and igniting her, leaving her engulfed in flames as she desperately rolled to extinguish the fire.
Reed’s attack marks his 73rd arrest, following a staggering criminal history of 72 prior bookings over three decades, including eight felony convictions like aggravated arson in 2020 for starting a fire outside a government building. Despite repeated chances from a lenient justice system—including mental health probation and pretrial release on electronic monitoring after assaulting a social worker—Reed struck again, shouting threats as he was taken into custody. Federal prosecutors hit him with terrorism charges for targeting a mass transit system, a fitting response to what prosecutors called a gruesome assault, yet it begs the question: Why was this career criminal ever back on the streets?
This tragedy underscores how progressive bail reforms and catch-and-release practices in Democrat-run cities like Chicago prioritize offenders over victims, turning public spaces into hunting grounds. Officials from the White House to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy rightly blasted the system for failing to incarcerate Reed despite his violent record, a failure that left MaGee fighting for her life in critical condition. When a tiny fraction of repeat criminals drives the bulk of violent crime, ignoring tough enforcement doesn’t reform—it endangers innocents and erodes trust in the streets.
Meanwhile, in New York City, leaders push ahead with plans to slash jail capacity from over 11,000 beds to just 4,160 in smaller facilities as part of the stalled Rikers closure, even as construction lags years behind schedule and costs balloon. This defund-the-police mindset pretends that reducing beds will magically cut crime, but history proves otherwise: disorder breeds more violence when consequences vanish. Americans deserve leaders who revive proven strategies like broken windows policing, which cleaned up cities before, instead of experiments that unleash chaos.
Citizens must demand accountability now, rejecting the politicization of safety that silences calls for order. Safe streets fuel prosperity, business, and family life—without them, urban America crumbles under fear. Returning to first principles of protecting the law-abiding majority will restore the security that built this nation, proving once again that strength, not weakness, keeps communities thriving.
