According to Gov. Pritzker, there’s no crime problem in Chicago. Everything’s great. In fact the recent weekend in which “only 18 people were shot” was hailed as a major step forward for Chiraqistan.
And then a career criminal who had been previously arrested 22 times set a woman on fire.
The scent of burning hair permeated the smoky air as Michael Thomas descended an escalator at the Clark/Lake Blue Line subway station, where he saw a woman lying on the platform Monday night.
“She had severe burns all over her upper torso and half of her scalp was burnt off,” an eyewitness said. “She was lucid and conscious and talking. I believe I overheard something along the lines of, ‘I can’t believe I’m on fire.’”
If only the authorities had some warning, surely they could have prevented this horrific crime.
The man, who has a history of arson cases, including fires set downtown, was arrested around midday in the Loop as he prepared to board a train near Clark and Washington.
How many previous crimes did he commit?
Police records show CPD alone has arrested the man 22 times since 2016, with today’s arrest being his 23rd.
Next up the 24th. Because the one thing we can’t do with criminals is lock them up. Let’s give them a tracker instead. It’s just like prison, but it allows them to set people on fire.
Court records show prosecutors asked a Cook County judge to keep the suspect in custody after he was charged with aggravated battery causing great bodily harm in the suburbs this summer, but the judge rejected their request and put him on 24/7 electronic monitoring, according to court records.
Less than three weeks later, another judge modified the terms of his monitoring to let him out of the house during daytime hours. According to court documents, 9:25 p.m. was well after his daily curfew.
And that proved completely useless.
At about 9:25 p.m. Monday, the 26-year-old woman was sitting on the train using her phone when the man walked up and poured liquid from a beverage bottle on her head, a source said. The woman ran through the train car, but he caught up with her and set the liquid, as well as portions of his own body, on fire, according to a source.
Surely when they let this monster out with an ankle monitor and a curfew this time, nothing will go wrong.
Ask I keep saying, forget funding the police and reopen the prisons. Until criminals stop being freed, this will only get worse.
