Unenforced Electronic Monitor Cited In Case
- Alphanso Talley returned to Cook County court this week as filings showed his ankle monitor had effectively gone dark weeks before Officer John Bartholomew was killed. - The key date is March 11: prosecutors say Talley’s monitor entered “sleep mode” after failing to charge, his whereabouts became unknown, and a warrant followed. - That turns the case into more than one shooting — it is now a test of Chicago’s pretrial supervision system.
The Chicago police killing at Swedish Hospital is now also a story about a system failure. Alphanso Talley, the 26-year-old charged with killing Officer John Bartholomew and wounding another officer, was not just out on pretrial release before the shooting. Court records show the electronic monitoring meant to track him had already stopped doing that weeks earlier. That matters because the basic promise of ankle monitoring is simple — if someone is not in jail, the state still knows where they are. Here, that promise appears to have broken before the worst happened. (abc7chicago.com) ### What changed this week? The new piece is the paper trail. Talley appeared in court this week on an older case, and reporting from that hearing surfaced records showing an arrest warrant had already been issued after problems with his monitor in March. His hearing on that older matter was brief and push(abc7chicago.com) April 25? (cbsnews.com) ### What do the records actually show? The key entry is stark. On March 11, a monitoring report said the device had gone into “communication loss” or “sleep mode” because it was not charged, and Talley’s whereabouts were unknown. ABC7 also reported two monitor violations within three days in early March, after he had been placed on electronic monitoring on (cbsnews.com)pital shooting. (newser.com) ### Why was he on monitoring at all? Judge John Lyke had released Talley on electronic monitoring in a pending violent-felony case late last year, despite prosecutors arguing he should stay detained. Court reporting says Lyke acknowledged Talley’s stack of pending cases was serious, but still chose release under Illinois’ current pretri(newser.com)e shooting, an active warrant tied to the monitoring failure. (abc7chicago.com) ### What happened at the hospital? Police say Talley had been arrested April 25 after a Family Dollar robbery and then taken to Endeavor Health Swedish Hospital after claiming he swallowed narcotics. While two officers guarded him during treatment, prosecutors say he produced a gun from under a blanket, sh(abc7chicago.com)ot into the hospital. (news.wttw.com) ### Why is the monitor issue so explosive? Because ankle monitoring is supposed to be the compromise between detention and release. The whole idea is: the court lets someone stay out, but under tight supervision. If a device can go dark, a warrant can issue, and the person still remains at large until a new violent arrest, then the supervision(news.wttw.com)a broader fight over enforcement. (abc7chicago.com) ### Is this really about the SAFE-T Act? Partly, but not only that. Critics are using the case to attack Illinois’ cashless-bail system, because the release happened under the state’s newer pretrial framework. But the narrower problem here is enforcement. Even if you support pretrial release in general, a (abc7chicago.com) too. (chicago.suntimes.com) ### What’s the bottom line? This case now has two layers. The first is the criminal case over the killing of Officer Bartholomew. The second is the institutional case against the supervision system that was supposed to keep track of Talley before April 25. And right now, the most damaging detail is not complicated at all — the monitor appears to have stopped monitoring, and nobody stopped him in time. (news.wttw.com)
