Superintendent David Brown used Londre Sylvester, a local rapper, as his latest example for why he believes the court system needs to increase its bond threshold.
Sylvester was ambushed and gunned down, with at least 59 shell casings found after the shootout, Saturday night down the street from the Cook County Jail, where he was just released on electronic monitoring.
“If not for his lifestyle choices, Londre Sylvester’s death would surely endanger everyone around him,” Brown said.
Brown noted Sylvester had the words “kill to survive” tattooed on him. And, according to his mug shot, the words “shoot to kill” were also tattooed.
Sylvester’s tattoo says, “Kill to survive” above a black target, police spokesman Don Terry said based on preliminary information, and “Shoot to kill” underneath, as seen in his mug shot. Nevertheless, Brown has continued to double down on his talking point, blaming the courts for Chicago’s violence, diverting the blame from police. Despite Sylvester being the victim of the shooting, Brown listed off the 31-year-old’s criminal record.
“His long criminal record didn’t keep him there long,” Brown said. “It’s incredible that he was eligible for electronic monitoring. It’s madness. It’s making us all less safe.”
Brown pointed to the two women who were injured in the shooting as people who were endangered due to Sylvester’s release, and said it was “a miracle” they weren’t also killed. One was a 60-year-old woman who was with Sylvester and shot in the knee, and the other was a 30-year-old woman who was walking in the area at the time and suffered a graze wound to her mouth, according to a police report.
“Sylvester who was murdered, these two women who were shot, they’re victims,” Brown said. “And law enforcement, all of us standing here before you, are sworn to be advocates for victims.”
Brown said he has had multiple meetings with Chief Judge Timothy Evans and State’s Attorney Kim Foxx, but it shouldn’t be a “backroom discussion.”
The topic is something that Brown said was brought up to President Joe Biden on Monday at the White House. The meeting with the president went an hour over the allotted time, Brown said. The president and other police leaders discussed short- and long-term solutions to crime deduction, including how to reduce the flow of illegal guns into the city. Brown said he also was able to talk one on one with Attorney General Merrick Garland and plans to have follow-up meetings with him.
Brown said he wouldn’t speak for what Biden said on bail reform or anything else during the meeting, directing those questions to the White House, but “the president did a lot of listening. I know it seems like a trivial thing, but he really listened.”
Brown also discussed the rollout of the U.S. Department of Justice’s “strike force,” which includes the Chicago Police Department and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The strike force will help get all law enforcement on the same page, Brown said, and help identify and trace the flow of illegal guns. Brown declined to give further details on what the strike force would look like, saying more details will be released soon.
This new strike force differs from previous attempts, Brown said, because “it’s more than that,” it’s money and support from the whole government for the “public safety ecosystem.”
The announcement of federal agents boosting their efforts to stem the flow of illegal guns in big U.S. cities like Chicago is nothing new. And Chicago officials wouldn’t specify how the new strike forces would differ from past efforts in the city
Last year, under President Donald Trump’s administration, Chicago and other cities received a surge of federal agents to fight violence as part of Operation Legend, named in honor of 4-year-old LeGend Taliferro, who was shot and killed in Kansas City, Missouri. In Chicago, the operation involved a few hundred federal agents from the ATF, Drug Enforcement Administration, Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Marshals Service.
What’s more, Chicago police and other big-city police departments routinely work with federal law enforcement on criminal investigations. Such partnerships over the years have included Project Exile, aimed at shifting more gun prosecutions to federal court for tougher penalties, and Project Safe Neighborhoods, designed to better coordinate federal resources and local intelligence on crime.