The images from that Chicago Blue Line attack are the stuff of nightmares — a commuter doused in gasoline and set aflame while returning home from work. Federal prosecutors promptly charged 50-year-old Lawrence Reed with a terrorism offense for allegedly carrying out this barbaric attack, a charge that carries the possibility of life behind bars. This was an act aimed not just at one woman but at the safety of every American who rides public transit.
The victim has been identified as 26-year-old Bethany MaGee, a young woman whose life was ripped apart by someone who should never have been walking free late at night. She remains hospitalized with severe burns, fighting to recover from a wound that should never have happened on a city train. American families deserve to feel safe on their commutes, not to fear becoming the next headline.
The alleged attacker is no first-time offender — Reed reportedly has decades of interaction with the criminal justice system, with more than 70 prior arrests documented in public records. That staggering number is not a coincidence; it’s a symptom of a criminal-justice system choked by leniency and political posturing. When career criminals become regular fixtures on city streets, law-abiding citizens pay the price.
Even more galling is how Reed was able to roam despite red flags. Prosecutors say he had been placed on electronic monitoring after a separate August incident, when a Cook County judge declined a request to hold him, telling prosecutors she “can’t keep everybody in jail.” That line — a cry of judicial exhaustion masquerading as fairness — has now been answered with smoke and suffering on a public train car.
Records show Reed repeatedly violated the curfew and movement restrictions imposed by his ankle monitor in the days before the attack, triggering escalated alerts that should have led to immediate intervention. Instead, the monitoring system and those entrusted with enforcing it failed to protect the public. This wasn’t a glitch; it was a man on a clear path of escalation who never encountered meaningful consequences until after he doused a stranger with gasoline.
Make no mistake: this is the predictable outcome of soft-on-crime policies championed by Democratic officials in cities across America. When rules forbid judges from holding dangerous defendants, or when monitoring programs are mismanaged and understaffed, criminals are rewarded with freedom and citizens are punished with terror. Blaming “mental illness” as the whole explanation ignores the basic responsibility of the justice system to keep violent people away from innocent civilians.
Hardworking Americans deserve leaders who will fight for real public safety — not bureaucratic excuses or round-the-clock apologies after the next preventable tragedy. Prosecutors, judges, and elected officials must be held accountable: tighten pretrial rules, restore common-sense bail and detention authority for violent offenders, and fix the electronic-monitoring chaos that leaves victims unprotected. If we value life and liberty, we must end the revolving-door leniency that turns our cities into hunting grounds for predators.
