IL state Rep says SAFE-T Act hurts police, but law’s supporters cite
progress
[July 24, 2025]
By Jim Talamonti | The Center Square
(The Center Square) – A state lawmaker who also serves as a police
officer says it’s time to repeal Illinois’s SAFE-T Act.
State Rep. Patrick Sheehan, R-Homer Glen, has worked in law enforcement
for 19 years.
Since the SAFE-T Act provision to end cash bail in Illinois was enacted
in 2023, Sheehan said police morale is down and senior officers have
left the force.
“We really feel like we’re powerless out there and that our courts have
become a revolving door. Who’s paying the price in all this? The victims
are paying the price. It’s about time we stand up, we take a look at
this act, we repeal this act, we get back to the drawing board,” Sheehan
told The Center Square.
Sheehan said morale has its ebbs and flows.
“But I have never seen morale and the mass exodus from some of our
senior officers since the SAFE-T Act has been passed,” Sheehan said.
Antioch Mayor Scott Gartner said it is demoralizing for police officers
to see gun crime and child molestation suspects walk out of jail.
“It’s demoralizing, not only for the police officers who spend hours and
hours trying to solve these crimes, but imagine a situation where
they’re actually even putting their lives at risk, going into a house
that may be a drug house or somewhere where there was a violent crime
taking place or a domestic incident, and then, after that, they find out
the person left,” Gartner told The Center Square.
Gartner has called on Gov. J.B. Pritzker and the General Assembly to
repeal the SAFE-T Act in its entirety.
Sheehan and Gartner spoke earlier this week after the arrest of
noncitizen migrant Jose Luis Mendoza-Gonzalez by U.S. Immigration and
Customs Enforcement officers last Saturday. Mendoza-Gonzalez is charged
with concealing a death, abusing a corpse and obstructing justice in
connection with the death of 37-year-old Megan Bos of Antioch. Under the
SAFE-T Act, the suspect was released without having to pay bail.
The Illinois Network for Pretrial Justice said Sheehan and fellow state
Rep. Tom Weber, R-Fox Lake, used the tragedy to attack the state law
that ended the use of money bond.
[to top of second column]
|
Illinois state Rep. Patrick Sheehan, R-Homer Glen, surrounded by
other House Republicans on the House floor - BlueRoomStream
“The legislators have falsely blamed the law for the pretrial release of
Jose Luis Mendoza-Gonzalez, who is accused of hiding Ms. Bos’s body
after she died from a drug overdose in his home. He is not charged with
her murder or harming her in any way or even providing her with drugs,”
the statement said.
The group said U.S. drug policy is responsible for the death of Megan
Bos.
“The criminalization of drugs is the driving factor behind unsafe drug
supply and the overdose epidemic. This dynamic, coupled with the federal
government’s attacks on immigrants, appears to have deterred Mr.
Mendoza-Gonzales from simply contacting authorities in the wake of Ms.
Bos’s death,” the statement continued.
Jennifer Bos, Megan’s mother, said the Lake County judge who released
Mendoza-Gonzales did not have the discretion to decide whether or not he
would be detained pending trial.
“The SAFE-T Act, with Class Four felonies, does not allow them. They’re
non-detainable,” Bos said in a video posted on her Facebook page.
Bos said there are only a few exceptions.
“It has to be an extreme case of danger to the community or extreme risk
of flight, and he didn’t meet any of those criteria in the legal way. So
Judge [Randie] Bruno had no choice but to release him. This is the law.
This is the law that we’ve been given that allows criminals to walk free
pending trial, regardless of what they’ve done. This is why I’m doing
what I’m doing, to bring attention to this fact and to make change in
this law so that nobody else has to go through what we’ve gone through,”
Bos said.
Brett Rowland contributed to this story.
 |
