Mayor Brandon Johnson on Thursday said state funding from Springfield could be the key to increasing safety on the CTA, after a man was charged with setting a woman on fire on a Blue Line train earlier this week.
The mayor said the $1.5 billion transit funding bill approved by state lawmakers last month includes money for mental health services and programs for people experiencing homelessness, and he is asking the state to expedite that funding.
Lawrence Reed, 50, has been charged in federal court with one count of committing a terrorist attack or other violence on a mass transportation system. He’s accused of dousing a 26-year-old woman in gasoline and setting her on fire around 9 p.m. Monday on board a Blue Line train in the Loop with no provocation whatsoever.
Reed has an extensive criminal record, including nearly 50 arrests and multiple felony convictions over the past three decades. In August, he was arrested for aggravated battery, accused of hitting a social worker at MacNeal Hospital Psychiatry and Behavioral Health in west suburban Berwyn.
Cook County prosecutors asked a judge to keep Reed in custody until his trial in that case, but instead the judge placed him on electronic monitoring, and another judge modified the monitoring hours. Still, the attack happened at a time when Reed would have been under active monitoring.
Johnson said the criminal justice and mental health systems failed to intervene sooner, despite Reed’s lengthy criminal record.
“This is an absolute failure of our criminal justice as well as our mental health institutions,” Johnson said. “This individual was charged with dozens of felonies over the past three decades. He was clearly seriously mentally disturbed and was a danger to himself and to others.”
Johnson said his administration is eyeing changes to address housing and mental health, but stopped short of committing to deploying more officers on the CTA, or efforts to ensure fewer unhoused users riding the CTA only for short-term shelter.
“I think it’s too early to speculate about what that absolutely looks like, but again the funding from Springfield is the most important thing. Without that funding, then none of this would be visibilized,” the mayor said. “As far as how we show up with law enforcement or security agencies, those things will be debated, but just know that it’s a top priority.”
State law gives the CTA the authority to ask administrative law judges to ban habitual criminals from their property, and to circulate bulletins on banned passengers – including their photo and other details – to CTA employees, contracted security firms, and Chicago Police.
But CTA employees said they never took such actions against Reed, who previously pleaded guilty in January 2020 to breaking the windows on a Blue Line train at O’Hare International Airport, and was sentenced to two years’ probation for that crime.
Reed was also the suspect in an active aggravated battery case from August, accused of hitting a social worker at MacNeal Hospital Psychiatry and Behavioral Health. In that case, a judge ordered him onto electronic monitoring, but her handwritten notes don’t show how she made that decision.
Documents from the office running Reed’s electronic monitoring showed there were more than 2,200 defendants on electronic monitoring earlier this month. Reed was among 176 people on electronic monitoring for aggravated battery charges.
On the day Reed allegedly set a woman on fire on the Blue Line, he was required to be at a Fuller Park home.
Johnson said the city is already investing in housing and mental health services, saying the effects can be seen across Chicago.
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