Four-Hour Police Wait After Chicago Home Invasion Fuels Self-Defense Case
A 19-year-old Chicago woman says she waited roughly four hours for police to respond after an alleged armed home invasion and sexual assault, despite multiple 911 calls from her mother, fiancé and landlord. Bearing Arms columnist Cam Edwards uses the case to argue that Chicago residents can't count on timely police protection and need to plan their own self-defense.
Snapshot
Edwards details how 55-year-old Calvin Lindsey allegedly broke into the woman's home, assaulted her at gunpoint, and fled with her belongings before officers ever arrived, with the victim already at Holy Cross Hospital by the time CPD showed up. Former Riverside, Illinois police chief Tom Weitzel calls the delay a "catastrophic failure" of government's basic duty to protect citizens, pointing to staffing cuts under Mayor Brandon Johnson as a root cause.
Key points
- No legal duty: Edwards notes the Supreme Court has held police generally have no constitutional duty to protect specific individuals, making a lawsuit against CPD an uphill fight.
- Staffing collapse: Weitzel says the Gresham District has lost 16 percent of its uniformed officers since Johnson took office, and hundreds of vacancies remain unfilled in the city's latest budget.
- Crime trends mixed: Edwards cites CrimeIndex.org data showing Chicago's homicide rate ticking up and reported rapes rising 5.6 percent even as robberies fell.
- Gun control push: Edwards highlights Johnson's lawsuit against Glock, support for red flag laws, and backing of Cook County's "assault weapons" ban as working against residents' ability to defend themselves.
Quick take
This is an opinion piece, and Edwards draws a broad lesson from one harrowing case: if police can be hours away, Chicagoans, armed or not, need their own self-defense plan. The underlying facts about staffing and response time are striking, but readers should note the conclusion rests on a single incident layered with the author's policy arguments.
Read the full story: bearingarms.com