November 25, 2025

BYRON YORK: The road to the Chicago train fire attack. “Prosecutors laid it out for Cook County Judge Teresa Molina-Gonzalez: 72 arrests, eight felony convictions, and seven misdemeanor convictions — a total of 32 years in and out of the criminal justice system:”

Molina-Gonzalez rejected that argument and sentenced [Lawrence] Reed to go free with the ankle monitor. Upon hearing the decision, the prosecutor objected “based on the serious nature of this criminal offense and evidence presented that tends to prove that the defendant is a threat to the physical safety of the victim and the community,” according to the transcript.

The prosecutor was practically begging Molina-Gonzalez to put Reed behind bars. But the judge was unmoved. “Thank you,” she said. “I understand your position, but I can’t keep everybody in jail because the state’s attorney wants me to.” And so Reed walked free, again, after another violent crime.

Fast forward to today. Reed is finally in jail, charged in a Nov. 17 attack in which police say he doused a young woman with gasoline while on board a Chicago L train. Police say Reed then set her on fire, all the while shouting, “Burn alive, b****!” The woman, 26-year-old Bethany McGee, suffered severe burns and is in critical condition. If she survives, she will face years of painful rehabilitation.

What to make of all this? Molina-Gonzalez got her way; Reed was free to board the train with his bottle of gasoline, ready to attack. And the prosecutor’s words came true; Reed was indeed a “threat to the physical safety of the community.” And the public was left to contemplate the obvious fact that Reed should have been incarcerated long ago, as well as the fact that Molina-Gonzalez represents something that has gone terribly wrong in the American system of justice. A society that will not take Lawrence Reed off the streets will not protect the public.

Read the whole thing.

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UPDATE:

Posted at 8:30 pm by Ed Driscoll