Lawrence Reed, a repeat offender with 72 prior arrests, has been charged with federal terrorism for allegedly lighting a young woman on fire on the Chicago train system.
The victim, Bethany MaGee, survived the attack, but is in critical condition, with severe burns. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy blasted Chicago authorities for their absurdly lenient treatment of Reed, saying, “This would never have happened if this thug had been behind bars. Yet Chicago lets repeat offenders roam the streets.”
The attack is the second high-profile example of brazen criminality on public transit this year. In August, Decarlos Brown, Jr. was similarly charged with a federal crime for allegedly murdering Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska on Charlotte, North Carolina public transit. Video of Zarutska’s murder sparked widespread outcry and debate over lenient urban policies on crime and disorder.
Reed had previously been charged for an arson attack on a government building in 2020, but was only given probation. More recently, he had also been released in a separate assault case with electronic monitoring, with the prosecutor in the case correctly predicting that this was insufficient to protect the community against further attacks.
President Donald J. Trump has regularly called attention to Chicago’s crime rate, and argued for the deployment of National Guard troops in order to get the situation under control. As is typical, Democratic politicians and liberal pundits have responded by claiming that crime in the city is exaggerated, pointing to a drop violent crime compared to 2024. Of course, the fact that improvements have been made is different from the problem actually being fixed. Chicago’s leftist mayor, Brandon Johnson, recently echoed the ideology behind giving criminals infinite chances, claiming that jailing people had not led to safe communities.
Until shocking attacks like Lawrence Reed’s and those of other repeat offenders are exceedingly rare, it is doubtful that the general public will be buying Democratic claims that crime is at acceptable levels. If Chicago doesn’t elect new leadership that concerns itself with cracking down on criminals rather than lying that punishment doesn’t work, though, we shouldn’t be surprised to see more attacks like these in the future.
