Letter: Stop the attack on victims’ rights

To the Editor:

Gov. JB Pritzker is off base on his comments related to the Illinois Prisoner Review Board. The crimes committed have real and lasting effects on the fabric of a community, and I am here to tell you that the statements made are not just disingenuous but flat out wrong.

On April 26, 2018, the Illinois Prisoner Review Board voted to grant the murderer who committed the most violent mass murder in Kendall County history, Carl Reimann, parole. I blasted this terrible, inconsiderate, uncompassionate decision at the time ad did law enforcement and the families so deeply affected at the time. These murders tore at the very fabric of our community, an innocence lost and a scar that has never fully healed.

Governor Pritzker is quoted as having said Republicans are hyper focusing on the original crime and ignoring everything else “including what the victims’ statements have been, including the victims’ families’ statements.” Yet he gives his prisoner review board a free pass who recklessly disregarded law enforcement and families’ statements to let Reimann go free.

Pritzker is further quoted as saying, “It’s very easy to just say this person committed an awful crime some many years ago and to say we’re going to throw away the key and leave them all in prison.” But it really is not. That takes real courage, real courage to look at an aged criminal and remember he is not the friendly grandfather-looking person you see in a photo but rather a mass murderer who deprived not just the five individuals who died that terrible night of their lives, but countless others.

It’s time to stop the attack on victims’ rights in Illinois. It’s time to hold Governor Pritzker and his Illinois Parole Board cohorts accountable. It’s time to show real courage by standing up to this bullying and send a message that we will not take it anymore. That safety is paramount, that we support law enforcement, that we support victims and that in Illinois, this assault on our safety and security must end.

Scott Gryder

Kendall County Board Chairman

Oswego