Two Midwestern shootings leave one man dead and another wounded, both allegedly at the hands of convicted felons who should never have been on the street—let alone armed—exposing the deadly cost of a justice system that keeps unlocking the door for repeat offenders.
In Democrat-run East Chicago, Indiana, and Pontiac, Michigan, the story is the same: violent repeat offenders with easy access to firearms and lenient treatment from the courts are terrorizing ordinary citizens while the press looks the other way.
In East Chicago, Austin Williams, 37, was out on bond for a pending Level 3 felony burglary when he went on a violent rampage on Sept. 12, the Chicago Tribune reported. Williams—already a convicted felon for battery in 2014 and burglary in 2010, making him a "serious violent felon" under Indiana law—assaulted his girlfriend outside Tuna’s Tap, stole her car, and fired gunshots at her as she ran into a nearby liquor store begging staff to call police. When 40-year-old Brent Jones, who was hanging out at the store, approached the area to de-escalate the situation, Williams shot him in the chest, killing him. Williams then fled, leading police on a chase before crashing and being apprehended. The Tribune detailed his extensive rap sheet and active bond status, but buried the systemic failure: a violent felon with a pending case was free to roam the streets and murder a man trying to do the right thing.
Across the state line in Pontiac, a prohibited gun possessor faces six felonies, including assault with intent to murder, after an August park shooting. According to CBS News, Ruben Aleman Contreras shot a man in the abdomen and buttock during a verbal dispute at Jaycee Park before fleeing in a vehicle. Deputies recovered shell casings at the scene. CBS noted Contreras’s prohibited status but never pressed why a man legally barred from having a gun was loose in a public park to begin with. Contreras was finally arrested in Dearborn and lodged in Oakland County Jail, where bond was denied. Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard praised the arrest, stating, "We have another sad example of a verbal dispute escalating into dangerous physical violence. Individuals that do so will be held to account." Apprehension after the fact is cold comfort to the victim bleeding on the grass.
The press reports the arrests. The sheriffs celebrate the apprehension. But nobody in the establishment wants to answer the obvious question: why were these violent felons on the street to begin with?
