Lock Up Violent Suspects: Ex-Riverside Top Cop

La Grange IL

21 April, 2022

8:06 AM

Description

RIVERSIDE, IL – Too often, Cook County authorities release suspects in violent crimes with low bond amounts, Riverside's former police chief said this week. In many cases, they commit more violent crimes after their release, retired Chief Tom Weitzel said in an interview. He recommended laws requiring judges to impose high bond amounts or not allow release for those accused of "extremely violent" crimes. He said he was not speaking about low-level offenses, but rather violent felonies. Not every suspect should go to jail, he said. The release policies affect Riverside and many Cook County towns, Weitzel said. In January 2019, Jeremiah Noah, now in his mid-20s, took part in a home invasion in the 200 block of West Quincy Street in Riverside, local police said. The suspects pistol-whipped a woman and kidnapped her son, dumping him in an alley in Chicago, police said. The home invasion was over an unpaid drug debt, according to police. At the time, Noah was charged with violent crimes in other suburbs. In March, CWBChicago reported that Noah shot his gun at a Mexican restaurant's ceiling near Midway Airport and threatened five of its customers. He was on electronic monitoring. "He was an extremely violent person to begin with," Weitzel said. "He had an extremely lengthy history. His initial bond was pretty substantial. But sometime during the process, he was able to make bond, indicating his bond was lowered." Later offenses, he said, are "100 percent preventable" because such suspects should stay in custody. Weitzel said his experience shows extremely violent criminals are repeat offenders. "In my 37 years in law enforcement, if someone is invading your home, there is no way that this is the first time they have committed a violent crime. Rarely does a person who goes to bond court on a violent crime have no criminal history," he said. "A criminal doesn't just wake up and say, 'I'm going to do an armed home invasion.'" He also said Cook County needed an effective notification system to alert victims when it releases violent criminal suspects. In the Riverside case, he said, the county failed to notify the victims of Noah's release. He also pointed to statistics from CWBChicago, a media organization that specializes in crime coverage, that showed Cook County numbers of released suspects who commit again. In 2021, 29 people were killed by those out on felony bond in Chicago, according to the media outlet. The number of such victims in 2020 was 33.