Crime & Law
Willie Wilson on Public Safety in Chicago, National Guard Troops: ‘This Is Very Personal to Me’
Threats of military deployment from the federal government are ratcheting up following the weekend arrests of five protesters outside an ICE facility in suburban Broadview.
The Trump administration now plans to send around 100 troops to Illinois, Gov. JB Pritzker announced, to apparently protect immigration agents who are subjected to protests.
This week at a news conference Pritzker called out the “invasion of Portland, Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.,” referring to National Guard presence, saying the practice is dangerous for American citizens and a threat to public safety.
President Donald Trump reaffirmed his promise to utilize military strength domestically, saying cities like San Francisco, Chicago, New York and Los Angeles are “very unsafe places” that should be used as “training grounds for our military.”
Local businessman and former Chicago mayoral candidate Willie Wilson, 79, welcomes the possibility of soldiers in the city.
“This is very personal to me,” Wilson said. “I’ve lost a son to violence. When you lose a loved one, half of your life goes down into the grave with that loved one.”
Wilson’s 20-year-old son Owen was fatally shot in his home in Hazel Crest in 1995.
City data shows that, as of Wednesday, homicides in Chicago are down 28% and shootings are down more than 35% compared to the same time last year.
Wilson argues that bringing the National Guard to Chicago would lower crime rates even more — like what’s being done in the nation’s capitol.
“If you can stop 25 people from being killed, that is a plus,” Wilson said. “He’s (Mayor Brandon Johnson) saying crime’s going down, but we don’t feel it in the community.”
The New York Times did an analysis of how National Guard activity in Washington, D.C., affected local policing. The Times found that crime did fall significantly. More than 50% of arrests with federal involvement were for drug and gun offenses, including people who had a license to carry weapons in surrounding states but did not possess a D.C. permit. Traffic and other minor violations accounted for 18%, and violent or property crimes made up 9% of cases federal agents were involved in.
It’s unclear what factors drove crime down and whether it will last once the National Guard leaves the district.
Wilson was in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, scheduled to testify at a U.S. Senate hearing regarding crime in Chicago. However, he said he was blocked from doing so due to a Senate rule disallowing Wilson, who ran against U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin in 2020, to testify in a hearing with the senator present. In response, Wilson filed a formal ethics complaint against Durbin.
Durbin’s office denies having a hand in blocking Wilson.
The office said in an emailed statement that “Willie Wilson was scheduled as a witness for the majority. The decision to invite all the majority witnesses and, subsequently, to condense the panels and drop Wilson from the hearing was ultimately made by Chairman Grassley and his staff.”
Wilson said he called U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley to thank him for the opportunity, despite the trip not going as planned. Wilson claimed the chairman told him he was removed from the panel as a “courtesy to Dick Durbin because Dick Durbin asked him to do so.”
