Chicago-area lawmaker calls for electronic monitoring reform after CTA worker's killing

We want to switch gears here and go to this story. A suburban lawmaker is calling for reform after a CTA worker was killed on the job. Julian Mobley was stabbed to death trying to assist a colleague who had actually got into an argument with a man at the Damon Green Line station. The suspect in this case, Shivaj Campbell, was on electronic monitoring at the time. Joining us now is Republican State Representative Patrick Sheehan of the South Suburbs, specifically Mokena. Representative, thanks for joining us. Thank you. Good morning. So there are a few house bills that we're talking about here that have been presented. Walk us through them and what they would do. Yeah, first, let me say my heart aches for Julian Mobley, his family, especially his two children, his colleagues at the CTA and then ATU Local 308. This is just another example of the radical crime policies that are coming out of our statehouse. And I believe we're beyond the tipping point here, and the need for legislative action here is apparent. I don't know if a lot of your viewers know that individuals that are out on electronic monitoring, they get credit day for day, time served. So we need to be more stringent in our policies. And that's why I've co-sponsored several pieces of legislation that I would like to see push forward here in veto session and I mean, at the latest lame duck session. I want to get your perspective on this, Patrick, because we know at one point in terms of the monitoring process, it was the Cook County Sheriff's Department, right? That has now been handed over to the office of the chief judge. They actually took responsibility for all new electronic monitoring placements that started April 1st of 2025. And there's been questions of if they are actually monitoring it properly um that criticism has been there for quite some time it was there actually before it happened do you feel like your house bills will address that in any way i do um you know we've seen that just in cook county alone uh over 300 individuals were awol and that includes individuals uh on murder so i know one of the bills uh that we have is that if there's an individual that violates their EM, pretrial services contacts local law enforcement immediately. There's several other pieces of legislation that I'm trying to push forward. One of them, obviously, it's just common sense here. If you're on electronic monitoring and you are accused of another felony, that should automatically revoke your pretrial release. And this man had seven prior felony convictions, including aggravated battery. One of the things that you have kind of taken aim at trying to reshape is the Safety Act. I know that many Republican legislators here in the state have taken issue with that. Tell us how you would change that. Well, I mean, I think the electronic monitoring is number one. I mean, this is something out of a, you know, a dystopian nightmare. And we've got nothing but lip service from the governor. This can go back to the young woman that was burned on a CTA line back November of 25. And the offender was arrested over 72 times. Governor Pritzker provided lip service to us. We had five months to get it right as a general assembly. We pushed the bills forward. And in that time, Chicago police officer Jonathan Bartholomew was tragically murdered by an accused felon who was out on electronic monitoring. And now we have Julian Mobley who was just, it sounded like he was just trying to break up a dispute and then this alleged offender stabbed him in the back of the neck as he was trying to run away. So it's no surprise to me that Mayor Brandon Johnson has kind of doubled down and has supported the Safety Act saying that there should be no other changes. But I'll listen to the CTA union president who had a great quote. He had said, don't tell us crime is down, we're your eyes and ears, we know different. And being in law enforcement for over 20 years, I mean, I see it every day. So I can echo that sentiment 100%. I want you to walk me through this, Patrick, of what you're presenting here in terms of these House bills and how you feel like they will work. Because one of the biggest questions that comes up with this electronic monitoring is, well, who's monitoring it? Who's sitting there watching to see said suspect someplace they're not supposed to be? And obviously nobody, because how else is it happening, right, in some of these cases? Do you address that at all? And I'm guessing if we were to call up the chief judge's office to ask what's the issue, I'm guessing they would probably say we don't have enough manpower. We don't have enough people to monitor it. I wanna see if your House bill addresses any of those potential conflicts that may come up. Right, well, obviously we need more stringent policies. Like I said, one of my House bills would contact law enforcement immediately if one of these of individuals had violated their electronic monitoring. The issue that we're having is, when an individual, especially like this accused murderer, violated his electronic monitoring over four times, there is no real recourse to it. The most that can happen is a small contempt of court charge and maybe they spend a day or two in jail. What should happen is, that we address in some of the House bills, is that the pretrial release should be revoked. And this individual should be detained immediately. And yes, we need stronger countermeasures. We need better watchdogs, as you put it, to make sure that we're watching these individuals. Because there's no reason why 300 individuals in Cook County should be AWOL that are out on felonies, including some of the murder. It seems to me as the layperson that we do a darn hard job of protecting criminals in the state of Illinois. And really victims are left to fend for themselves. And oftentimes we don't even hear widespread outrage like we do with some of these other crimes when something like this happens. It leaves me scratching my head time after time. How did we get to this point in the state of Illinois? Well, I mean, all I can say, Natalie, is if the calls need to be loud enough, you need to call your state legislators. You need to call your elected officials and demand change. And if they're not going to listen, the only thing is that you have to go out to the ballot box, hit them where it hurts, and kick them out of office. But the other, my follow-up to that is, your Democratic colleagues, they rule the state, okay um in the house and in the senate and the governorship obviously when voters are i mean this isn't a new problem this is ongoing so obviously when voters vote they're they're in support of of some of the things that they're proposing and that they're passing well um i mean maybe our messaging needs to be better as a republican party the issue is we're outspent you know sometimes 11 to 1 20 to 1 to get the messaging out we were the ones out there uh doing the work. We have the legislation to right the ship, it's time to call the bills. In my opinion, I think there are some moderate Democrats that I think wanna see this legislation pulled back. But I think it's the far left socialist fringe group that is intimidating some of these elected officials with their defund the police rhetoric, their abolish prisons rhetoric and to the normal layperson, to the normal taxpayer, that's not something that we support. It's something out of a dystopian nightmare. Yeah, I mean, you go to some of these neighborhoods, to your point, you were saying what the union president said is like, we're the eyes and ears. We know that there's crime out there. You go to some of the neighborhoods, they're not in support of less police because they know the importance of police in the neighborhoods dealing with the crime issues. Patrick Sheehan, I wish we had some better resolve here to fix this stuff right away, but we don't. And I wish we had more time to talk about it. Thank you so much for your time on Good Day Chicago. Thank you. Thank you, Tia. Thank you, Natalie. All right. Stay with us right here. We'll be right back.