Ruben Roman, the grown man who apparently led Adam Toledo astray, belongs behind bars pending trial | Editorial

For years, prisons have been used as a kind of warehouse for people who are mentally ill or accused of minor crimes but are too poor to bail.

For these types of cases, Cook County’s bail reform measures in 2017 were a complete success. They created a blueprint for the nationwide bail reform, which lawmakers passed earlier this year and which should also prove to be a success. A Loyola University Chicago Study The person released in November found that twice as many people were released without bail as would have been expected without bail reform. If you look at Cook County Jail now, its residents are mostly those charged with murder or other serious crimes.

But now even longtime proponents of bail reform are concerned that the pendulum has swung too far the other way on gun crimes. You wonder why people who reasonably pose a threat to the community are set free, sometimes through electronic surveillance.

Count us among those who worry.

Case in point is Ruben Roman, the 21-year-old man who allegedly started the chain of events that led to the police death of 13-year-old Adam Toledo on March 29th. Twenty-one days after Toledo’s death, Roman was released from prison for electronic surveillance.

Ruben has been accused of recklessly discharging a firearm, illegally using a weapon, endangering children and violating probation. Based on these allegations, it is unlikely that Judge Susana Ortiz would have ordered Roman to be detained without bail, although we and many others would argue that Roman appears to be a clear and genuine threat to the community.

Roman is not charged with a crime, such as murder or aggravated sexual assault, that Ortiz clearly would have allowed him to be denied bail. In addition, Cook County’s Chief Justice Timothy Evans has directed judges to find a way to provide affordable bail. We don’t know what Roman’s investigative report revealed about the gravity of his criminal background.

Roman and Toledo were reportedly caught video and audio recordings shooting at moving cars in Little Village. After the police responded to a ShotSpotter alert, the couple tried to escape. Toledo was fatally shot in a split second after apparently throwing away a gun and raising his hands in one movement. Roman was reportedly attacked by police and gunpowder residue was found on his gloves.

Following an incident in 2019, Roman was charged with escalating the illegal use of a weapon who defied arrest and other charges. However, the prosecution dropped most of the charges in return for a pleading guilty to a single count of illicit use of a weapon, and Roman was given parole.

Roman, who was arrested in Maywood in early April, allegedly breached the terms of that parole. The Chicago Community Bond Fund paid its $ 15,000 bail in the Adam Toledo case and a bail of $ 25,000 in the 2019 case.

Electronic surveillance has been an effective way to keep drug offenders out of prison while they await trial. If they break the rules and go out to buy or sell drugs, the danger to society is not great.

But repeated gun offenders are a different matter. Obviously, if they break the rules and go out and commit more gun crimes, the danger for all of us is great. It’s also annoying for people in a neighborhood to see someone arrested for a serious gun crime be right back on the street. Can anyone point to a single study that shows repeated gun offenders released from prison pose no serious threat?

Cook County has to go back to the drawing board for gun crimes. The county should keep most of its recent bail reforms but rewrite gun crime rules. That requires changes in the law. It will also require guidelines for judges and prosecutors to better distinguish between serious and minor gun crimes. Illinois lawmakers have set the effective date of their bail in 2023 to ensure everything is done correctly.

About 5,700 people are currently held in Cook County Jail. The majority of them are criminal suspects awaiting trial and denied bail. Approximately 80% of the prison population are charged with murder or some other very serious crime. Around 20% are waiting to be moved to another location, such as a state prison. Some charges that seem insignificant but have a serious criminal background.

We believe that where Cook County got it wrong, we have seen more people charged with murder or serious gun crimes be released through electronic surveillance. At that moment, 93 people charged with murder are being monitored at home.

The quickest way to undermine popular support for efforts to reduce the population of the prison by eliminating cash and other means is to put people who should stay exactly where they are – behind bars – under electronic surveillance .

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