First, we will say the only thing worth saying at this moment: our heart breaks for the family of the nine-year-old boy shot earlier this month. We cannot imagine the suffering that this child and his family must be experiencing. 

In the wake of this tragedy, we should closely examine the gaps in our juvenile systems. The children charged in this case are ages 15 and 14. When children this young are accused of using a gun to seriously harm someone, something has obviously gone terribly wrong. The 15-year-old had been previously arrested, demonstrating that he needed help he did not receive through his earlier court involvement.

Unfortunately, some elected officials in Peoria, including the Peoria Police Chief and the Mayor, are using this tragedy as an opportunity to yet again rail against the Pretrial Fairness Act. Not only are they failing to actually engage with the questions that could have prevented the shooting of a 9-year-old, but they are once again misleading the public. Their reaction is cynical and disgusting.

• First, the Pretrial Fairness Act has absolutely no relationship to the 15-year-old’s pretrial release on his earlier case. The child was charged as a juvenile, and the Juvenile Court Act controlled the release or detention decision that was made by a judge. The Pretrial Fairness Act only applies to adult criminal cases and did not make any changes to juvenile laws. 
• Second, as these officials surely know, had the child been charged with gun possession as an adult—a position for which we are certainly not advocating—the law gives the prosecutor and the judge the authority to deny him pretrial release. Nevertheless, these elected officials are trying to fool the public into believing that somehow the Pretrial Fairness Act mandates release for anyone accused of gun possession. That is quite simply false.
• Sadly, we are not surprised by this response. Elected officials in Peoria have long railed against pretrial reform. Twice now, for example, Peoria City Council has considered proposals to require mandatory pretrial jailing for people accused of certain offenses, ignoring decades of  federal and state court precedent requiring individual determinations of an accused person’s risk of flight and public safety concerns.

It is a failure of leadership that these elected officials are using this tragedy as yet another misleading attempt to rail against a successful reform they did not support. The tragic facts of this incident should be leading to honest and accurate discussions about how to improve the support available for young people. The fact that some of Peoria’s elected officials are instead attempting to blame the Pretrial Fairness Act for decisions made in juvenile court is shameful. The people of Peoria deserve better.