[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                  VICTIMS OF VIOLENT CRIME IN CHICAGO

=======================================================================

                            COMMITTEE FORUM

                               BEFORE THE

                       COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY

                     U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION
                               __________

                      TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2023
                               __________

                           Serial No. 118-46
                               __________

         Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary


                  [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
                  
                  
               Available via: http://judiciary.house.gov
                               __________

                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
                    
53-700                   WASHINGTON : 2023                  


                       COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY

                        JIM JORDAN, Ohio, Chair

DARRELL ISSA, California             JERROLD NADLER, New York, Ranking 
KEN BUCK, Colorado                       Member
MATT GAETZ, Florida                  ZOE LOFGREN, California
MIKE JOHNSON, Louisiana              SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas
ANDY BIGGS, Arizona                  STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
TOM McCLINTOCK, California           HENRY C. ``HANK'' JOHNSON, Jr., 
TOM TIFFANY, Wisconsin                   Georgia
THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky              ADAM SCHIFF, California
CHIP ROY, Texas                      ERIC SWALWELL, California
DAN BISHOP, North Carolina           TED LIEU, California
VICTORIA SPARTZ, Indiana             PRAMILA JAYAPAL, Washington
SCOTT FITZGERALD, Wisconsin          J. LUIS CORREA, California
CLIFF BENTZ, Oregon                  MARY GAY SCANLON, Pennsylvania
BEN CLINE, Virginia                  JOE NEGUSE, Colorado
LANCE GOODEN, Texas                  LUCY McBATH, Georgia
JEFF VAN DREW, New Jersey            MADELEINE DEAN, Pennsylvania
TROY NEHLS, Texas                    VERONICA ESCOBAR, Texas
BARRY MOORE, Alabama                 DEBORAH ROSS, North Carolina
KEVIN KILEY, California              CORI BUSH, Missouri
HARRIET HAGEMAN, Wyoming             GLENN IVEY, Maryland
NATHANIEL MORAN, Texas               BECCA BALINT, Vermont
LAUREL LEE, Florida
WESLEY HUNT, Texas
RUSSELL FRY, South Carolina

               CHRISTOPHER HIXON, Majority Staff Director
          AMY RUTKIN, Minority Staff Director & Chief of Staff
                                 ------                                
                            C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              

                      Tuesday, September 26, 2023

                                                                   Page

                           OPENING STATEMENTS

The Honorable Jim Jordan, Chair of the Committee on the Judiciary 
  from the State of Ohio.........................................     1
The Honorable Andy Biggs, Chair of the Subcommittee on Crime and 
  Federal Government Surveillance from the State of Arizona......     3

                               WITNESSES

Gianno Caldwell, Founder, Caldwell Strategic Consulting
  Oral Testimony.................................................     5
Lt. John Garrido III, Retired Detective, Chicago Police 
  Department
  Oral Testimony.................................................     8
  Prepared Testimony.............................................    10
Officer Carlos Yanez, Jr., Retired Officer, Chicago Police 
  Department
  Oral Testimony.................................................    12
  Prepared Testimony.............................................    15

 
                  VICTIMS OF VIOLENT CRIME IN CHICAGO

                              ----------                              


                      Tuesday, September 26, 2023

                        House of Representatives

                       Committee on the Judiciary

                             Washington, DC

    The Forum met, pursuant to notice, at 9:05 a.m. Central, in 
Fraternal Order of Police, Chicago Lodge #7, 1412 W. Washington 
Blvd. #3, Chicago, Illinois, the Hon. Jim Jordan [Chair of the 
Committee] presiding.
    Present: Representatives Jordan, Gaetz, Biggs, Fitzgerald, 
Bentz, Cline, Kiley, and Lee.
    Also present: Representative Miller of Illinois.
    Chair Jordan. The Committee will come to order. We welcome 
everyone to today's Forum on victims of violent crime in 
Chicago.
    The Chair now recognizes the gentlelady from Illinois to 
lead us all in the pledge of allegiance.
    All. I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States 
of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one 
Nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for 
all.
    Chair Jordan. Good morning. I want to thank you all for 
being here today.
    The Chair is now recognized for an opening statement.
    Today's forum is about our commitment to justice and 
keeping communities safe. In recent years, we have all seen how 
the radical left have sought to undermine public safety in the 
name of criminal justice reform. The left has implemented pro-
criminal policies that have allowed dangerous criminals to 
remain on the street. The left has attacked law enforcement and 
sought to defunding the police, and then when crime goes up, 
they act shocked, and when cities become less safe, they act 
surprised.
    Earlier this year, we traveled to New York City and heard 
directly from victims of violent crime. We heard about the 
consequences of soft-on-crime policies implemented by rogue 
prosecutors and radical policymakers in New York City.
    Today, we are in the great city of Chicago, the second in 
our series on violent crime in major urban areas to hear 
directly from victims. Thank you to our witnesses for your 
willingness to be here and thank you for sharing your stories.
    Innocent people in Chicago are victimized by a justice 
system that cares more about political correctness than 
punishing the criminals who harm them and their families. For 
11 years, 11 years, Chicago has led the country in homicide and 
has only gotten worse under State's Attorney Kim Foxx.
    According to an official report by the Chicago Police 
Department, crime in Chicago overall has increased during the 
last few years by nearly 20 percent. Theft is also a huge 
problem in Chicago, which saw a 114 percent increase in car 
thefts, and a 32 percent increase in other thefts between 2018-
2022.
    We know Chicago experienced yet another summer with high 
rates of violence. Memorial Day weekend started with 11 people 
killed and 53 others, including two toddlers wounded in 
shootings across the city. Over Labor Day weekend 10 were 
killed and 34 more were wounded, including a six-year-old boy 
struck by a bullet in his thigh while he was at his home. We 
know what happened this past weekend. Thirty individuals shot 
this past weekend.
    The rise in violent crime in Chicago has been coupled with 
attacks on the men and women who wear the uniform, on our great 
law enforcement officers. In 2021, 76 Chicago police officers 
were shot in the line of duty. Two officers tragically have 
already been killed this year. The brave men and women in law 
enforcement deserve better.
    Chicago leaders have argued Ms. Fox's policies on 
nonprosecution and eliminating cash bail are keeping too many 
criminals on the streets and making this city more dangerous. 
Her presumption is not to prosecute. Remember the violent riots 
back in 2020 where there were charges of assault, mob action, 
and aggravated battery to a police officer? Ms. Fox told her 
office that there should be a presumption against proceeding 
unless there was a body or a Dash Cam footage available, or if 
a police officer was the complainant.
    A rogue prosecutor's decision not to prosecute crimes is 
made even worse when the legislature passes its pro-criminal 
policies that they did just recently with the so-called SAFE-T 
Act. This law abolished bail, implemented arrest and release 
policies for policing, limited when defendants could be deemed 
flight risks and prevented police from arresting nonviolent 
trespassers. The result: Sixty-three percent of Chicagoans now 
do not feel safe in their city.
    By downplaying surging crime and denying victims justice, 
the leaders of this city are failing their citizens. I mean, 
you stop to think about it. First, it was defunding the police, 
the former mayor, then it is the SAFE-T Act, and then it is a 
prosecutor who won't put the bad guys--won't prosecute the bad 
guys. All that leads to the situation we see today.
    A former Cook County prosecutor, 25-year veteran of the 
office resigned last summer saying he had zero confidence in 
the prosecutors' office. This level of crime spills into every 
aspect of daily life in Chicago. A local pharmacy chose to open 
two aisles for shoppers while everything else is kept hidden 
and only bringing out items that the shoppers request. The 
pharmacy took such drastic steps because retail theft and the 
violence that comes with it, is just too great in Chicago.
    We want to also extend a special thank you to the Chicago 
Fraternal Order of Police. John Catanzara, thank you for the 
work you do, the FOP president. I saw John just--right here in 
the front. Right there on the front. Thank you so much. You 
guys have been tremendous hosts. We appreciate all you have 
done to help us set this up today, and we support you, and we 
thank you for serving our country every day. Thank you. I look 
forward to our conversation.
    Before we get to our witnesses, I want to ask the Chair of 
the Subcommittee on Crime, the gentleman from Arizona, Mr. 
Biggs, for an opening statement.
    Mr. Biggs. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Thank you, everyone, for being here. I thank our witnesses 
for being here to testify today and our Members. Thank you to 
the FOP for opening your doors and providing this wonderful 
facility for us.
    I want to, also, let everyone know that this is an official 
Committee Hearing, Committee Hearing as if we were in 
Washington, DC, in the House of Representatives. It is 
official. Every Member of this Committee knew about it and was 
invited to be here and has a duty, quite frankly, to be here, 
but you will notice that, unfortunately, some of my colleagues 
across the aisle decided they didn't want to come and hear 
these important witnesses and what they have to testify and 
consider this very critical and important issue, and I am 
saddened for that. I am saddened about that.
    I will tell you that the Crime Subcommittee has worked hard 
on these issues and let me just give you an idea. We have 
worked on--we have had hearings on retail crime because that is 
exploding in cities. Speaking of exploding, the explosion of 
fentanyl across our country. It affects everyone, small cities 
and large cities. In San Francisco, for instance, every day 
three people die from fentanyl overdose.
    We talked about border crime. We actually had a field 
hearing in Cochise County, Arizona, because of what is 
happening across our border, and it explodes and also impacts 
everything, including here in Chicago you are impacted by the 
illegal migration that is taking place. Again, at that field 
hearing, an official hearing, not one Democrat showed up. What 
a shame.
    Last week, we had a hearing for victims of sex trafficking, 
which America is the biggest sex trafficking, and our Federal 
Government is the biggest logistic arm for the cartels that are 
bringing in sex trafficking, facilitating sex trafficking. What 
a shame.
    We will have a series of hearings and markup a number of 
bills in Legislation dealing with all of these issues 
commencing Thursday and going regularly for the remainder of 
this year.
    I thank the Chair, Mr. Jordan, for his leadership on this 
issue and for bringing us here to Chicago, this great city.
    On Sunday, Breitbart News reported at least 30 shootings in 
Chicago over the weekend with three fatalities. One victim, an 
86-year-old man was shot around 10 a.m. on Saturday while 
retrieving something from his truck. The second fatality 
occurred at 12:40 a.m., Sunday, about two miles from where we 
are sitting, where a 40-year-old was shot in the chest. The 
third fatality occurred at 10:45 a.m. The 24-year-old victim 
was sitting in his vehicle when another vehicle pulled up 
alongside. Two men exited and open fired, killing the man.
    The Chicago Sun-Times has reported at least 433 people 
killed in Chicago from January 1-September 24.
    Crime is also pushing businesses out of Chicago. Walmart 
has permanently closed one half of their locations in Chicago 
in recent months. AT&T, Gap, Banana Republic, Uniqlo, Macy's, 
and Verizon have all closed locations in Chicago.
    Yesterday a member of my staff went to grab a few items 
from Walgreen's located across the street from the Art 
Institute of Chicago around the corner from the iconic cloud 
gate sculpture in Grant Park. A sign indicated the store will 
be closing permanently within a month, and aisle-by-aisle every 
product, including deodorant and toothpaste were behind locked 
cases to prevent the retail crime.
    These soft-on-crime policies undermine the rule of law and 
limit the freedom of everyday people. Law-abiding, everyday 
people live in fear, and that fear results in limits on the 
ability to travel, engage in commerce, and to associate one 
with another. These policies emasculate law enforcement. They 
hand over control of a once great American city to violent 
criminals.
    When I speak about this, I am thinking of what really makes 
a community a community. It is the ability to trust each other, 
and that seems to be gone in so many cities. Tragedy. It is a 
tragedy. We look at our citizens and we say, how could this be? 
How could it be? It is because of failure of leadership.
    I predict to you that we, as a Nation, if we continue this 
path of lawlessness and a disregard for the rule of law, we 
will lose our freedoms. To have freedom, you must adhere to the 
rule of law.
    I look forward to our witnesses' testimony today.
    Thank you, Mr. Chair. I yield back.
    Chair Jordan. I thank the gentleman. He was spot on.
    We now will introduce today's witnesses. Mr. Gianno 
Caldwell. Mr. Caldwell is a political analyst and founder of 
Caldwell Strategic Consulting, which provides strategic advice 
and consulting services related to public affairs.
    On June 24, 2022, 15 months ago, his younger brother 
Christian was murdered in Chicago. Police determined that he 
was not the target of the shooting, but was simply in the wrong 
place at the wrong time.
    We have seen you, Mr. Caldwell, out there as an outspoken 
advocate for stopping this surge of violent crime we see across 
the country, and we appreciate that work and we appreciate you 
being here today.
    Mr. John Garrido, III. Mr. Garrido served with the Chicago 
Police Department for more than 30 years, retiring as 
lieutenant in 2022. During his career, he worked in the patrol 
division, narcotics, violent crime, and homicide. We appreciate 
you being here today, and the 30 years of service you gave to 
this town, and you gave to law enforcement.
    Finally, Mr. Carlos Yanez, Jr., Mr. Yanez was shot several 
times in the head and shoulder during a traffic stop in August 
2021. While serving as a Chicago police officer, Mr. Yanez's 
partner was tragically killed during this incident. After being 
shot, Yanez's doctors told him that he would never move the 
left side of his body again, but he regained movement after 
extensive physical therapy.
    We appreciate your service. We appreciate your perseverance 
and your dedication to overcoming the tragic, tragic shooting 
that you had to endure.
    We welcome all our witnesses and thank them for appearing 
today. Please know that we have any written statements that you 
shared with us ahead of this forum, so accordingly, we ask that 
you summarize your testimony in five minutes if you can, but we 
are going to be lenient with that. If you have to go 7-8 
minutes, you go right ahead. This is that important.
    We are going to start with Mr. Caldwell and then work down 
the line. So, Mr. Caldwell, you are recognized for whatever 
amount of time you want to take.

                  STATEMENT OF GIANNO CALDWELL

    Mr. Caldwell. Good morning. Thank you, Chair Jordan. Thank 
you, Chair Biggs. A special thank you to Congressman Burgess 
Owens who has been working behind the scenes with me since last 
year to ensure that I can be before this body.
    My name is Gianno Caldwell. I was born and raised on the 
South side of Chicago. I got involved in public service when I 
was 14 years old working for my local alderman, because I 
actually believed my community in Chatham could be saved from 
violence, crime, and drugs.
    I eventually moved with the same goals in mind to 
Washington, DC, and became a political consultant and a 
national media analyst, and TV personality.
    Before I begin, I truly wish that it was not my place to be 
before you today, but I believe I have no choice, no choice 
because of the countless people in my hometown, including my 
own family, who are innocent victims of murder and violent 
crime. Those who are shot, robbed, carjacked, or even worse, 
those who had multiple people in their family murdered in 
Chicago. Those voices scream out for justice.
    Many of the elected officials here in Chicago have ignored 
those voices, and it has come at a great price for the people 
of the city, not just in blood, but also in treasure and 
opportunity as multibillion dollar businesses, like Ken 
Griffin's Citadel, justifiably fled Chicago, and he took 
millions of dollars in tax revenue with him.
    We know this has happened and due part to the policies of 
the Cook County prosecutor, Chicago most recent mayors, the 
Governor, other politicians throughout the State of Illinois. 
These officials have recklessly ignored the people they were 
elected to represent, and as a result, bodies, mostly Black 
bodies are littered throughout the streets of Chicago.
    I, unfortunately, understand the pain of thousands of 
victims whose families have been destroyed. On June 24th of 
last year, I received a call that my innocent, my innocent 
teenage baby brother Christian had been murdered, shot down in 
the street by a stranger when a group of men stepped out of a 
black SUV and fired into a crowd on 114th and South Vincennes 
Street.
    The police have repeatedly said that my brother was not the 
target, that he just happened to be at the wrong place at the 
wrong time. In Chicago, being at the wrong place at the wrong 
time could be sleeping in your bed and a bullet comes through 
your window, or in the back seat of a car at a McDonald's 
drive-through, as seven-year-old Jaslyn Adams was murdered.
    Living in Chicago should not come with a death sentence, 
but it does for too many Chicagoans. My brother Christian had 
the potential to do well in life. I still remember the day when 
he begged me to take him on a college tour out of State when he 
was just 16 years old, and we went; but Christian will never 
have the opportunity to go to college or to get married, to 
have kids, or to build a career.
    So many other youths in Chicago have experienced the same 
reality. I refuse to capitulate to the idea that Christian had 
just become another Chicago statistic, one of the hundreds of 
homicides in Chicago 2022.
    There is an abundance of potential in Chicago among our 
youth and old alike. Unfortunately, much of that potential lies 
in graveyards across our city. Chicago recently had the highest 
number of homicides in more than a quarter of a century. As of 
today, 2023, it is on pace to join the previous two years as 
one of the most violent years in our city's history.
    From the moment I learned my brother Christian was 
murdered, I felt defeated. Since my younger sister Mia called 
me on June 24th, screaming into the phone, ``Christian is 
gone,'' I felt a giant void in my heart. Never had I made room 
for the thought or possibility that someone so close in my life 
would be stolen so violently, but that is naive, I suppose.
    On the same day my brother was killed, a five-month-year-
old girl by the name of Cecelia was murdered in a drive-by 
shooting while sitting in the back seat of a car with her 
family.
    Chicago is an active war zone. This is not hyperbole. It is 
the people who are afraid to leave their homes to walk to and 
from work, to walk anywhere in this city. Would this same fear, 
would these same murders, be accepted in the suburbs? 
Absolutely not.
    The soft-on-crime policies that many of you know about here 
are prosecutors like Kim Foxx who refuses to prosecute, 
decriminalization of offenses, laws like the SAFE-T Act, which 
ends cash bail and allow criminals back on the street to commit 
more crime, and the no-chase policy, which constrains the 
police from doing their jobs. Policies pushed by the Cook 
County prosecutor and current and previous mayors have proved 
to be a death sentence for the people of the city of Chicago.
    What started off as, perhaps, a noble cause for criminal 
justice reform has become justice for the criminal. It is our 
police who have been handcuffed, as criminals no longer live in 
fear of arrest or prosecution. When you can steal at-will, when 
you can drive away from a police stop, the streets become 
lawless. Murder, as many like my family know too well, is close 
behind.
    The elected officials here have systematically endangered 
the lives of all Chicagoans, but especially those of color, the 
marginalized who they claim to care about the most. Most shot 
and murdered in Chicago are Black men. According to the Chicago 
police, African Americans, including my brother, made up of 80 
percent of the murder victims in Chicago in 2022. For the 
record, Black people make up only 29 percent of the city's 
population.
    We need help. Congress must use the power of the purse to 
place restrictions on the funding received by local governments 
to ensure elected officials are focused on what should be their 
No. 1 priority, the protection of its citizens. Federal dollars 
are used effectively for natural disasters, from storms to 
pandemics. It is time to use those same resources for manmade 
disasters: Providing funding for local law enforcement agencies 
to help hire and train more officers with the latest crime-
fighting techniques, support programs that address the root 
cause of crime, job training, education, and other social 
services to help people in at-risk communities.
    As small as it sounds, the Federal Government can help 
provide some special funding for funerals, as innocent people 
being killed are those who need such help the most. Let the 
world know how many are buried in our communities here. Pass 
legislation that supports community policing, which emphasizes 
building much-needed relationships between law enforcement 
officers and the communities they serve.
    The First Step Act, a law that I lobbied for personally, 
provides funding for programs that help people who have been 
incarcerated successfully reintegrate into society. Congress 
could increase funding for the Second Chance Act to help reduce 
recidivism rates.
    Finally, Congress and the Federal Government should employ 
the full use of the FBI to help clear our murder cases in our 
cities. When I first spoke to the detective handling my 
brother's case, he told me he had other priorities and more 
cases had come in since my brother was murdered. I have since 
been told Chicago alone needs 2,000 new detectives to handle 
the current caseload. It wasn't until I angrily went on Chicago 
national media that the detective took me seriously.
    I had access to a platform most families do not. Even then, 
it didn't last long. Soon police weren't returning my calls, 
and they weren't, even though there had been someone arrested. 
My brother's murder has not yet been solved.
    Ultimately, I believe the Chicago Police Department has 
failed my family, and countless others. Reforms within the 
Chicago Police Department are needed. I have had to go through 
hell in an attempt to get justice for my brother. I am now 
working directly with the FBI Chicago field office. How many of 
the hundreds of murderers have that same opportunity?
    My love for Chicago is infinite and unconditional. It will 
always be home to me. I first got involved in public service 
when I was just 14, volunteering for my local alderman every 
day after school like it was a job, a decision which set me on 
the path to public service to help a city I love so much. My 
family and no family should go through what I experienced this 
past year.
    We have more resources than any Nation in history. Why 
aren't we using those resources for people who need it most? 
Why are we allowing our cities, from Chicago, New York, Los 
Angeles, Baltimore, Oakland, Philadelphia, and San Francisco to 
remain dangerous kill zones while migrants are traveling from 
across the world to Chicago for a sanctuary city status? There 
continues to be no sanctuary and no peace for the very people 
who call Chicago home their entire lives.
    Today I am here to demand justice and accountability not 
just for my baby brother, but the thousands of other Chicagoans 
whom we may never know their names. I implore you to exercise 
your full power and resources. Christian's death is senseless. 
It is a senseless loss, but it doesn't have to be a meaningless 
one. Please make him one of our last victims and help us save 
the people of Chicago.
    Thank you.
    Chair Jordan. Thank you. Well done. Thank you, Mr. 
Caldwell. We appreciate that. We appreciate the tragedy your 
family has had to deal with and what you have had to go 
through. So, thank you for being here.
    Mr. Caldwell. Thank you.
    Chair Jordan. Officer Yanez, you are recognized, and you 
can take as much time as you want as well.

               STATEMENT OF OFFICER CARLOS YANEZ

    Officer Yanez. Thank you.
    Good morning, Mr. Chair and the esteemed Members on the 
House Committee on the Judiciary. I am disabled Chicago Police 
Officer, Carlos Yanez, Jr., star #16022. Thank you for this 
opportunity to be heard and address this very important forum 
that hopefully brings light to the failings of some of our 
leadership and our elected officials that have created so many 
victims of violent crimes in Chicago. We all have seen the 
tragedies resulting from the violent crime wave that has swept 
through Chicago and the victims who have to live with the pain 
of it every day, including myself.
    I am blessed to be speaking before you all today after what 
happened to my partners and I on the night of August 7, 2021. 
While conducting a traffic stop, a repeat offender fired on us 
with a firearm acquired by a straw purchaser without remorse or 
hesitation. A straw purchaser is somebody who purchases a 
firearm for someone who is prohibited by law from possessing 
one. Killing one of Chicago's finest police officers, my 
partner and friend, Ella Grace French.
    I was shot a total of five times, four of which were in the 
head. I lost my right eye, some hearing in both ears. I also 
have tinnitus in my right ear, as well as partially paralyzed 
on the left side of my body. I almost didn't survive my 
injuries.
    It was my dream to become a Chicago police officer for as 
long as I can remember. Then in August 2014, my calling became 
a reality. I started the Chicago Police Academy. I was then 
assigned to the 7th District, also known as Englewood, where I 
spent most of my career. I had the honor of learning and 
working among some of the greatest officers and supervisors who 
became family. To see their commitment to serve their community 
and to respond to dangerous situations without hesitation every 
day gave me even more pride to wear the badge.
    Under Mayor Lightfoot's administration, the department 
disbanded gang, gun, and saturation teams and combined them 
into what is now known as community safety team, created to 
protect residents from escalating violence due to the riots of 
2020. With all the policies and procedures put into place, 
officers find themselves with their hands tied behind their 
back.
    Being an officer is stressful enough, but now it seems like 
there is a witch hunt after officers unnecessarily. Even after 
Ella Grace French's passing, COPA disciplined her for a search 
warrant, and the only thing that she was seen doing on her body 
camera was assisting a woman. This made me sick to my stomach. 
COPA continues to serve suspension days to officers like candy 
on Halloween.
    Cook County has its own issues under Kim Foxx's 
administration. I have never heard of so many State's attorneys 
resigning or transferring to other counties, refusing to no 
longer work under her.
    Cook County has become a revolving door. Officers continue 
to lock up violent offenders, but then we find them back on the 
streets committing even more violent crimes, including murder. 
I just hope we elect someone that is going to demand 
accountability this next term.
    I understand this position is not easy, but we have 
criminals fleeing suburban police departments and questioning 
if they are in Cook County because they know there will be less 
repercussions for their actions in Cook County versus 
surrounding counties. Let me give you an example. Several 
offenders in possession of a stolen vehicle and firearms 
committing numerous armed robberies throughout the city and 
someone is shot, or worse, killed.
    The only person who pulled the trigger is charged with 
first-degree murder. The others will not even though in the act 
of committing a forcible felony someone was killed. It used to 
be all parties involved would be charged with the highest 
charge possible.
    As for making stricter gun laws, we, in Illinois, already 
have one of the strictest gun laws that only law-abiding 
citizens follow. The more laws you put into place is only going 
to up the price of firearms on the street that straw purchasers 
are selling. I say we enforce the laws that we have on 
individuals that are illegally in possession of a firearm and 
make it a minimum of three years in jail automatically.
    Straw purchasers should be charged the same as offenders 
who pull the trigger. It is time to stop coddling criminals and 
holding them accountable for their actions. Only then will they 
stop and think before they carjack, rob, shoot, or kill a law-
abiding citizen.
    Certainly, we have many other issues contributing to many 
victims of violent crimes in Chicago. I pray this Committee and 
everyone listening hears this testimony I have given to you 
today, and takes the proper actions needed to address these 
issues.
    Thank you Members of the House Committee on the Judiciary 
for allowing me to present my testimony and give you the 
perspective as a Chicago police officer, and as a victim of 
violent crime.
    God bless all the officers doing their job around the 
country and be safe. God bless you all.
    [The prepared statement of Officer Yanez follows:]

[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Chair Jordan. Officer, thank you. We appreciate your 
inspiring story as well.
    Lieutenant Garrido, you are recognized for five minutes or 
a few more if you would like. Go right ahead.

              STATEMENT OF LIEUTENANT JOHN GARRIDO

    Lt. Garrido. I want to thank you all for giving us the 
opportunity to shine a light on what is happening here in the 
city of Chicago.
    I am here today to discuss the adverse effects of politics 
on law enforcement in Chicago. While law enforcement and 
politics should operate in distinct spheres, their intersection 
severely undermines the efficiency and the credibility of our 
police force.
    When politicians prioritize ideological goals over 
evidence-based practices, it puts our officers in a difficult 
position. They become pawns in a larger political game, forced 
to enforce laws and policies that may not necessarily serve the 
best interest of our community and public safety.
    Political agendas also heavily impact how resources are 
allocated in our department. The Defund the Police movement has 
had dire consequences. The result, a police department that is 
both underfunded and understaffed, compromising our ability to 
serve and protect.
    We often hear that the silent majority supports the police, 
yet unfortunately, our silent majority here in Chicago is 
asleep at the wheel. Despite having over 1.5 million registered 
voters here in Chicago, nearly one million stayed home during 
the last mayoral election, and those numbers happen again and 
again, over and over every election.
    The result is allowing a radical minority elected 
politicians with agendas that don't serve the broader 
community's interest. We have a mayor that actually scolds 
reporters for demonizing children when asking questions about 
the mobs of teens that regularly rampage throughout our 
downtown business district, destroying property, and stealing 
anything they can get their hands on.
    Lack of voter interest has given us legislators that 
changed the threshold for felony theft from $300-$500, and then 
they gave us Kim Foxx, who increased it from $500-$1,000. So, 
as long as you steal something that is under $1,000, you are 
not going to get charged with a felony in Cook County.
    The Illinois State legislators also passed the 800-page 
SAFE-T Act in the early hours of the morning with little to no 
discussion whatsoever. They passed this Act, and it gave us no 
cash bail that just went into effect last week. On the first 
day of no cash bail last week, individuals charged with violent 
crimes were released without any restrictions. Two people were 
charged with robbery, and a guy was accused of punching a 
Chicago police officer in the face, and they went home without 
restrictions, and there was no request by the prosecutor for a 
detention hearing.
    Another offender was sent home without any restrictions 
after being accused of attacking four police officers and 
sending two to the hospital. Yet, again, the prosecutor's 
office did not ask for any detention hearing.
    Chicago politicians also often make sweeping 
generalizations that don't reflect the complexities of law 
enforcement. These same politicians publicly refer to our 
police department as systemically racist. This not only 
undermines the public trust, but also affects officers' morale 
and effectiveness.
    Constant political interference has had a detrimental 
impact. In just the first 100 days since Mayor Johnson was 
sworn into office on May 15, 2023, we have had over 200 
homicides, 900 people have been shot, 2,500 robberies, 5,000 
stolen cars, 2,000 burglaries, and 300 carjackings.
    Since January 2020, almost 15,000 people have been shot in 
the city of Chicago, and almost 3,000 have been murdered. The 
problem is it has become so normalized here that those numbers 
aren't even shocking to us anymore, and they are not even 
shocking to the general public.
    Department policies, lack of manpower, and Illinois laws 
have impacted our ability to make arrests as well. Dropping 
over 83 percent from 225,000 arrests in 2006 to the last few 
years, we have been averaging about 38,000 arrests per year. A 
significant drop.
    Catalytic converter thieves are now armed, and they are 
shooting at homeowners and residents that confront them. 
Carjackers are getting younger and younger. Most of them are 
under the age of 18 years old. As a matter of fact, they just 
arrested four a few days ago. One was as young as 12 years old.
    Officers are retiring and resigning at alarming rates. We 
are currently over 2,000 officers short on the Chicago Police 
Department, and of the 1,100 officers that left last year, 350 
of them were resignations, which used to be unheard of here, 
and those resignations, the majority of them, are lateral 
transfers. So, they are not leaving law enforcement. They are 
leaving Chicago law enforcement.
    Officers are second-guessing themselves. With a job that 
requires you to make split-second decisions, second-guessing 
yourself can be a devastating mistake. One example was an 
officer who was fighting with an offender on PCP. He was able 
to overcome her and repeatedly bang her head against the 
concrete while her partners and other officers tried to taze 
him and tried to subdue him.
    They subsequently took him in custody, but not before she 
sustained massive head injuries and permanent brain damage. The 
one thing that she said afterward was she thought she was going 
to die, and she knew that she should shoot him, but she didn't 
do it. She chose not to because she didn't want her family and 
the department to go through the scrutiny that would be made 
public the next day on the news.
    It is not just laws that make our communities unsafe. These 
elected officials have discarded experience and used race and 
gender to select the leaders of our department. The last 
superintendent, David Brown, was probably the worst of all. He 
brought us scarecrow policing, excessive canceled days off that 
exhausted our officers, politically motivated punishments and 
penalties for minor infractions, and promotion after promotion 
of inexperienced officers based solely on their gender and the 
color of their skin.
    We have people now in this department that have actually 
gone from the rank of sergeant to deputy chief in 10 months or 
they have gone from sergeant to commander in less than two 
months, and they haven't been given the opportunity to learn 
their roles in those positions before they move on to the next 
rank, which not only impacts morale in the department, but also 
impacts the quality of leadership.
    Probably the worst statistic of all is our police suicide 
rate. The national average for law enforcement is 30 percent 
above the national average. Here in Chicago, it is 60 percent 
above the national average. We usually average about two to 
three officers a year that take their lives. Last year seven 
took their lives.
    Chicago and Illinois politicians have come together to 
create a toxic work environment like we have never experienced 
before. These policies and legislation have made our 
communities less safe and made it even more dangerous to be a 
Chicago police officer.
    We can't afford to let the silent majority sit quietly 
anymore, and I hope with hearings like this and repeatedly 
speaking about it, that hopefully we can get the word out that 
elections have consequences, and they need to start paying 
attention to who they are voting for and who they are putting 
in office because the consequences so far have been 
devastating.
    Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Lieutenant Garrido follows:]

[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Chair Jordan. Thank you, Lieutenant.
    When you let bad guys stay on the street, you shouldn't be 
surprised when you get more crime. When you defunded the 
police, you shouldn't be surprised when you get more crime. 
When you pass legislation that ends cash bail, you shouldn't be 
surprised when you get more crime. When you do all those 
things, you shouldn't be surprised that we have, what, a 1,700 
police officer shortage in this city. That is what left wing 
policies have done.
    We have got a short video we want to show that shows how it 
plays out on the street, which you all have talked about and 
all experienced in a personal and firsthand way. So, if we 
could play that video and then we will get right to the 
Members' questions.
    [Video shown.]
    Chair Jordan. We will now recognize the gentleman from 
Arizona.
    Just so you know, if any of you need a break, just let us 
know and we will take a break, but we are going to proceed with 
five-minute questions from each of our Members. Like I said, if 
you need a break, just let us know, and we will be happy to 
take a break.
    The gentleman from Arizona is recognized for five minutes.
    Mr. Biggs. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Let's start with you, Officer Yanez. One of the things you 
said is you called on enforcement of the laws, and that 
presupposes that your district attorneys and your prosecution 
is not enforcing laws. Can you expand on that for a moment?
    Officer Yanez. Sure, I can. Yes, I can, Chair.
    We have criminals. Like I said, it is a revolving door. We 
have individuals that are committing countless acts of crime, 
violent crimes, and they are just being released, and they are 
just getting multiple probation sentences.
    As an officer on the job, we were arresting numerous 
offenders that were charged with--convicted of murder and 
released within a 6-7-year period, which was ridiculous, and it 
is just terrible.
    Mr. Biggs. They re-offended.
    Officer Yanez. They were arrested for firearms, possession 
of firearms. So, we have a convicted murderer in possession of 
a firearm.
    Mr. Biggs. Thank you.
    Lieutenant Garrido, the numbers that you were citing are 
just staggering, and you talked on it, but I want you to talk 
about specifically the second-guessing that officers undergo 
because of the hostility, if you will, toward officers who are 
making decisions in the split second that affects life and 
death.
    Lt. Garrido. Well, it is happening because of the way 
officers are treated, the way that they are treated after an 
incident occurs. You have got situations where, like I said, 
officers have to make split-second decisions, and they are 
immediately scrutinized. They are attacked. They are put on 
desk duty for supposed to be 90 days. We have had some officers 
that have been put on desk duty for as much as two years, and 
other officers come in every day to work, and they see that 
officer sitting there, and they realize, OK, that could be me 
next.
    We see other officers that are actually threatened with 
criminal charges, or we see them actually get where they try to 
fire them.
    Mr. Biggs. So, that impacts the morale, but that also 
impacts the safety of the citizens because of the morale.
    Lt. Garrido. Because it is going to make officers hesitate, 
right. You are going to have officers that don't want to get 
fired. They don't want to go to jail for maybe, possibly an 
innocent mistake, and when you are having to weigh all that 
stuff out in a split-second decision, that is tough to do.
    Mr. Biggs. Thank you.
    Mr. Caldwell, you are a native Chicagoan. How do you think 
these policies have affected the changes you have seen in the 
safety of the community you grew up in?
    Mr. Caldwell. Well, I think we just saw it all on tape, and 
I have heard my voice in that tape multiple times. I have got 
to tell you, when you handcuff the police, what do you expect? 
Lawlessness. That is what tends to happen. We saw our Chicago 
police handcuffed. We have seen them demoralized by previous 
mayors, and we continue to see that, I believe, under Brandon 
Johnson.
    They have a policy called this no-chase policy where 
officers aren't allowed to chase a suspect in their car without 
calling in to their supervisor, or you can't chase them on 
foot. Criminals know this. So, what do you think they are going 
to do? They are going to take advantage of every opportunity to 
commit more crime, and the politicians here seemingly don't get 
it, and it has become problematic for everyone.
    As I mentioned before, every community in Chicago has been 
impacted by this, but especially for a lot of the politicians 
that run the State of Illinois and the city of Chicago, the 
folks that they seemingly care a lot about are the Black and 
Brown folks who are taking the brunt of the pain, the 
murderers. Things need to change here quickly.
    Mr. Biggs. Each of you can comment on this. It is something 
that all of you have alluded to, and it is the ideological 
preference over actually providing real safety to the 
community, and I will start with you, Mr. Caldwell, and then 
work on down, please.
    Mr. Caldwell. Would you repeat your question, please?
    Mr. Biggs. Yes. I want you to expand on this notion of how 
the ideological or political priorities of those who are in 
political leadership actually undermine, ultimately, safety. In 
other words, they have placed their political ideology over the 
safety of the community in which they are charged to ensure.
    Mr. Caldwell. We have seen the seed of that through the no-
bail laws, so the cash bail. We saw in the First Step Act--not 
the First Step Act. I am sorry. With the SAFE-T Act, with that 
initial, original bill, second-degree murder, nondetainable 
offense. Arson, nondetainable offense. Many offenses you would 
think we want to put these folks away for a very long time. 
Nondetainable offense. It has been a seed that has started 
across the country and one I think--because we haven't really 
seen much yet because the implementation of that law just 
started.
    I am believing, just based on just pure logic and common 
sense, that this is going to make matters much worse. So, where 
we are in Chicago right now where you can be downtown Chicago, 
be robbed, killed, whatever the case may be, we are really 
entering Gotham City, based on the law that just got 
implemented.
    Mr. Biggs. Mr. Yanez.
    Officer Yanez. I have seen it firsthand under Mayor 
Lightfoot's administration when she disbanded all the gang and 
saturation and gun teams. It made a huge impact. You had 
veteran officers that knew what they were doing, experienced in 
what they did, and specialized in what they did. They knew the 
streets. They knew the offenders, because it is always the same 
offender. The community that I worked in, it is beautiful. 
Englewood is beautiful. Most of the criminals don't live in 
Englewood. They just travel there, and they are repeat 
offenders.
    It is terrible to see a beautiful community that is 
affected. When she started this community safety team, you had 
experienced officers that didn't want to--they felt 
unappreciated, and, as we said, the morale just went out the 
door. So, you had experienced officers that just decided to go 
back because there was too much liability on the officers doing 
their job.
    When you are chasing offenders with guns things happen bad, 
and like others have said, you don't want to be put in that 
position. You don't want your family to be put in that position 
where you are going to be on callback, or worse, charged 
criminally, or you are going to lose your job. It is just 
terrible.
    Then COPA, it is terrible what COPA is doing to these 
officers, proactive officers, too, most of them. They are 
trying to do their job because they love what they do. Like I 
said, it is not a job, it is a career, a calling, and we see 
something and you want to react, and it happens in a split 
second.
    What happened to us was seconds, and it could have happened 
differently if there weren't certain policies and procedures 
that were put in place.
    Mr. Biggs. Thank you so much. My time has long expired. I 
am sorry, Mr. Garrido.
    Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Chair Jordan. The gentleman yields back. I thank the 
gentleman.
    We will now recognize the gentleman from Oregon, Mr. Bentz, 
for five minutes.
    Mr. Bentz. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Thank all of you for being here.
    Mr. Caldwell, I lost a younger brother in an airplane 
crash. I couldn't talk about it for three years. It has been 
five years ago.
    I have to compliment you on being here because there 
becomes a callousness, kind of a feeling that these deaths 
don't really matter. So, without people like you stepping up 
and explaining the loss, then things don't tend to happen. So, 
I want to thank you again for what it takes for you to be here 
today.
    Mr. Caldwell. Thank you.
    Mr. Bentz. Perhaps you can share with us what you do to try 
to bring yourself to talk about this kind of loss.
    Mr. Caldwell. Well, honestly, when this happened on June 
24th, I didn't make it public until the next day, but I was 
really going to wait until the following week because I didn't 
want to have to deal with the emotions that come with the folks 
calling and checking in on you. I decided to post it on June 
25th and make it publicly known because the people who had 
murdered my brother were still out there.
    As you all know, I work for Fox News channel, and it has 
been a tremendous platform for me. I thank the people over at 
Fox News channel, Suzanne Scott and many others, who have 
allowed me to be able to tell me story. As I begin to tell the 
story, it really hit me that many people who don't have access 
to such platforms to be able to get justice for their families, 
to have their voices known.
    When my brother was murdered, the newscast that day said 
18-year-old murdered, two other people shot. That was it. No 
name. No picture. How many other people are experiencing that 
daily, if they are even getting mentioned on the news?
    I know that the people behind me are overwhelmed. I know 
that the Chicago police--there are many really good heroes 
within the Chicago police. I only shared my story and I get 
before cameras because I want to ensure that not just my 
brother's murder case is solved, but many, many others.
    So, I have been able to utilize the platform, which I have 
at Fox News, to share other stories of families who are looking 
for that help. That is one of the reasons, as I was going 
through the process of planning my brother's funeral and I saw 
how expensive it was, and I am thinking, the folks who live in 
Chicago, a lot of poor people and live in these particular 
areas, they are receiving a brunt of the murders. How can they 
afford this?
    So, it was a mission of mine, and it is one that I will 
continue.
    Mr. Bentz. Thank you so much for that.
    Mr. Garrido, or excuse me, Lieutenant Garrido, I have a 
friend who is a retired prosecutor. So, I reached out to him in 
anticipation of today's meeting, and I asked him what standards 
should apply to prosecutors. He said, about national standards,

        There aren't many, but that is because each local community is 
        supposed to elect folks who will protect them.

and so, rather than have a national standard, that is the 
approach he mentioned.
    That said, he goes on to say,

        The people of Chicago have no less interest in being safe from 
        random shootings, gang violence, and rampant drug dealing than 
        any other part of America.

Then, he says this:

        What is particularly risible about Kim Foxx is that she's look 
        primarily to the criminal defense attorneys and advocates for 
        criminals known as the woke community, or known in the woke 
        community as the criminal justice affected community, not 
        victim groups, not police or law enforcement organizations.

    For example, Foxx, as well as approximately three dozen 
Soros DAs out of the 2,500 elected DAs in the United States do 
not participate in the National DA Association, by far the 
largest prosecutor organization, which has been around since 
1950. That it, that organization, to which they don't 
apparently belong, has avoided taking partisan political 
positions.
    She and other Soros DAs have coalesced around a much 
smaller group called the Association of Prosecuting Attorneys, 
which has few members nationwide and, unlike the NDAA, has 
taken very partisan political positions.
    My question to you is, after all that, is it true that they 
are taking political positions, as opposed to those which are 
going to help more adequately control crime?
    Lt. Garrido. Absolutely.
    Mr. Bentz. Please explain.
    Lt. Garrido. Absolutely. Just like I said before about her 
changing the threshold for felony theft from $500-$1,000, she 
has a lot of leeway to decide what they are going to charge and 
what they are not going to charge.
    When we present homicide cases or any case for felony 
approval, they put a lot of restrictions and just create these 
long list of things that we have to do to try to--hoops that we 
have to jump through, and they make it difficult.
    If I could, a sentence from a letter that one of the 
State's attorneys, a top-ranking State's attorney who left, he 
said:

        The State's attorney voiced her concern with a headline and the 
        heat she was getting over her backers and never voiced any 
        concern over the fact that this woman was shot and killed 
        simply for walking to the store, and nobody is going to face a 
        murder charge. That is what is wrong with this administration. 
        This administration is more concerned with political narratives 
        and agendas than with victims and prosecuting violent crimes. 
        This is why I can't stay any longer.

    This is one of several public letters that were put out by 
State's attorneys as they are leaving. It is 100 percent based 
on political ideology and not seeking justice for victims in 
Chicago.
    Mr. Bentz. Thank you so much.
    My time is up. I yield back.
    Chair Jordan. I thank the gentleman. The gentleman yields 
back.
    The gentlelady from Florida, Ms. Lee, is recognized for 
five minutes.
    Ms. Lee. Lieutenant Garrido, I would like to start with you 
and return to the subject of bail reform and appropriate bail 
procedures.
    I had the privilege of serving my community as a Federal 
prosecutor, and later as a judge, so I understand what a 
critical part of the criminal process that is, and how much it 
affects overall community safety.
    Will you elaborate for us, please, on the effect it is 
having on the law enforcement officers' ability to do their job 
when prosecutors don't seek detention hearings and judges are 
prohibited from considering community safety and likelihood of 
recidivism as factors in making appropriate bail 
determinations?
    Lt. Garrido. Well, it is just another nail in the coffin 
where we repeatedly see different things that embolden the bad 
guys and make these criminals feel that they are not going to 
be held accountable. So, why should they care? They are not 
worried about getting arrested because they know they are going 
to be out right away.
    We oftentimes would joke just because for years, our 
criminal justice system in Chicago here, in Cook County, has 
been in shambles, that most of these offenders, they will get 
off on technicalities or whatnot, but at least sometimes they 
would spend time in jail while waiting for their trial. So, 
they would get at least some time served. Now, that is out the 
window.
    So, you have got the bad guys who are just learning, and 
they are quickly learning because this stuff is broadcast 
everywhere, that they don't have to worry about any 
consequences. So, it makes it extremely difficult for officers 
to do their job because you are now dealing with people that 
are even more combative than they normally would be.
    Ms. Lee. You also touched on the subject of juvenile 
offenders. In your experience, tell me about some of the 
juvenile offenders you see. Is it important for prior juvenile 
offenses to be considered in the totality of the seriousness of 
a criminal's behavior and in future prosecution and sentencing 
or detention decisions?
    Lt. Garrido. Absolutely. We have seen time and again the 
gang bangers are actually using--they have done it for years. 
They always use the younger kids. They would use them to do 
their burglaries. They use them to hold their weapons. They use 
them to hold their drugs because they know they are just going 
to get a slap on the wrist. So, that has always been the case.
    Now it seems as though these young offenders are getting 
more dangerous, quite honestly. They are now shooting at 
people. They are now stealing cars and doing carjackings. Like 
I said, the other day the offenders were four of them, and they 
were ages 12-16 years old. So, we have got our juvenile 
criminal offenders, at least here in Chicago, are becoming more 
and more violent. So, absolutely that stuff should be 
considered.
    Ms. Lee. Officer Yanez, you touched on the dismantling of 
the gang and gun specialized units. Would you elaborate for us, 
please, on why those units were established, why they are 
important, and why it is affecting the efficacy of your work 
not to have them anymore?
    Officer Yanez. So, I worked the 7th District Tac 4\1/2\ 
years. As John Garrido said, ``you have to learn your 
technique.'' Everyone learns their profession in a certain 
field, and you have officers that had experience numerous 
years, over the years, of working with certain individuals, 
whether they be gang members, gun offenders, narcotics, and 
just being able to deal with it when it comes to saturation.
    The units that were established were for basically common 
sense what they were named. The gangs were for officers that 
had prior knowledge with certain gang members or leaders, and 
they knew when a gang shooting happened and occurred, where 
their retaliation would be, so we could focus on that area.
    As far as the gun teams, they specialized in retrieving 
guns from offenders, gun offenders.
    Saturation was basically you saturated an area where there 
was going to be--where we had knowledge of a gang shooting. We 
would saturate that area so there wasn't retaliation.
    When you dismantle that and take away some of the perks--so 
they worked 10-hour days as one of the perks. You have officers 
that have to be on the job, and you are arresting individuals, 
and then you have officers that are--that takes a process. You 
are arresting them, so it could take up to several hours to 
process a criminal, an offender, being charged with a weapon.
    So, you also increase the overtime pay. So, it is just--
yes.
    Ms. Lee. Lieutenant Garrido, I would also like to touch on 
the subject of officer discipline and the concept that officers 
are confronted with anonymous complaints against them and 
denied an opportunity to understand the allegations or confront 
the witnesses that might be making allegations against them.
    Would you share with us what is going on in that regard and 
how it is affecting officer morale?
    Lt. Garrido. It has a huge impact on morale. Just to give 
an example, we have officers that will--the complaint will come 
in. It is an anonymous complaint. The investigation has been 
going, and these investigations sometimes take 2-4 years. It is 
incredible. I had one investigation for us that was nine years 
in the making.
    So, these officers are going to work every day. They don't 
know when the next shoe is going to drop. They don't know 
whether this investigation is going to go. They don't know if 
they are going to somehow be criminally prosecuted as well. It 
is demoralizing for the officers, and if you can imagine that 
officer is sitting there in roll call every day, it is 
affecting his partners and the other officers because they also 
know that he is going through it, and some of them are going 
through it as well.
    These investigations just go on and on and on because they 
just--I don't know what the reason is. They are short-staffed, 
they are not conducting the proper investigations, whatever it 
is, and then allowing these anonymous complaints.
    People learn quickly. Just to complain against the police. 
You just put in a complaint. They lie a lot. There are a ton of 
these investigations that are false and false allegations, and 
at least when you had to make them sign an affidavit, at least 
that helped reduce it a little bit. By eliminating that, now 
anybody and everybody is making complaints against the 
officers.
    Ms. Lee. Thank you.
    Mr. Chair, I yield back.
    Chair Jordan. The gentlelady yields back.
    Lieutenant, Mr. Caldwell mentioned earlier a no-chase 
policy. Is that the policy with the police department now?
    Lt. Garrido. So, we have always had a vehicle chase policy, 
and it is a balancing test, and you have to weigh things out, 
the safety of the public--
    Chair Jordan. A foot chase as well?
    Lt. Garrido. --and they have added a lot--well, they have 
added a lot of restrictions and things to make it difficult to 
actually conduct a chase.
    Well, now they just recently added at the end of last year, 
a foot chase policy, which also includes a balancing test. So, 
if you walk up to a corner, you get a call of somebody selling 
drugs on the corner, and they match the description that was 
given and they take off running, that alone is not enough. You 
are not supposed to chase those offenders or those subjects.
    The interesting thing about it, as far as how things are so 
politicized, criminals are generally stupid. So, it took them 
years to figure out that our vehicle chase policy is 
restrictive. Well, Lightfoot and Brown couldn't wait to get out 
there and broadcast that we have a foot chase policy. So, what 
happens? We ended up with videos of people yelling at the 
officers that are conducting foot chases, yelling at them that 
they can't chase.
    Chair Jordan. Wow. Can't chase them, and then if you do 
catch the bad guy, you get an anonymous complaint, and you get 
a prosecutor who won't prosecute them. I mean, it is such a 
deal. You wonder--again, I think one of the key elements here 
is the damage to morale, the fact that you are that many 
officers, 1,700 officers short, I think, is scary.
    It is not my time. It is the gentleman from Virginia who 
will get his full five minutes, of course, and the gentleman 
from Virginia, Mr. Cline, is recognized.
    Mr. Cline. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    I want to thank our witnesses for being here today. This is 
a truly enlightening opportunity for us to hear from you, for 
the public to hear from you as well. Your voices need to be 
heard, and as Lieutenant Garrido said, ``the silent majority 
needs to speak up.''
    I come from a State where we have these problems, we have 
had these problems of recidivism, but in the 1990s, we took 
action to address them. We passed a ban on parole. We passed 
stricter laws regarding bond and bail laws, and we now have the 
lowest recidivism rate in the country, in Virginia.
    We are blessed to have leaders who recognize the benefit of 
that, and we want to keep it that way.
    Illinois is, unfortunately, in a different place with their 
recidivism rate. Whereas Virginia's is around 20 percent, 
Illinois' is around 35 percent. Chicago is 89 percent--as high 
as 89 percent potentially. It is really shocking to hear what 
has happened to the recidivism rate and what that does to 
crime.
    Lieutenant, can you talk about the recidivism rate, but 
also the idea that not just chasing, but taking action 
regarding smaller crimes can help prevent larger crimes.
    Lt. Garrido. Well, with the recidivism--and I don't know 
the statistics, but I know there is numbers out there that show 
that a majority of the crimes are committed by the same people 
that are just out over and over and over and over.
    As far as the other aspect of your question--I am sorry, 
can you repeat that last part again?
    Mr. Cline. Well, can you talk about kind of a broken 
windows policy where--
    Lt. Garrido. Right, right. So, up until 2016, we used to 
have a policy of doing contact cards, and that is where 
officers would, anytime they stopped or came in contact with 
somebody, you would document it on a little card and you would 
turn it in, and they would get put in the computer. So, it 
helped actually solve a lot of investigations because people 
could look up and see where people were that matched certain 
descriptions.
    Policies changed. We went to an investigative stop report, 
which was two pages, took a ton of time to complete, and the 
numbers dropped big time. So, before 2016, we were stopping 
anywhere from 450,000-500,000 people a year here in Chicago. 
So, it is engaging with the public out there, it is proactive 
policing.
    That first year, 2016, we dropped to 108,000 stops, and it 
has dropped down to now where it is probably at about 30,000 
stops a year. That is a lot of people that are not interacting 
with the police anymore, so they feel emboldened, they are 
braver, they are going to carry their weapons, they are going 
to do more crimes.
    Mr. Cline. Talk to me about the impact that the Defund the 
Police movement has had on that as well.
    Lt. Garrido. These officers want to do the job that they 
are hired to do. They want to go out there, they want to work. 
Helping people is in their DNA. Putting these restrictions on 
and making it extremely difficult, making them jump through 
hoops, making them spend all this down time--before it was 
quick. You would stop somebody, you do a contact card, you move 
on to the next one.
    When you have to stop and do a two-page report on the 
computer, it completely hampers the whole process.
    Mr. Cline. Officer Yanez, you mentioned your coworker who 
actually hesitated and the impact of that Defund the Police 
movement on officers hesitating on the scene, whether it is to 
engage or to actually take action. Can you speak a little bit 
about the impact that has--that Defund the Police movement has 
had on officer responsiveness?
    Officer Yanez. I didn't say that. No, my partner never 
hesitated. I can see that--
    Mr. Cline. One of your coworkers, and maybe it was the 
lieutenant.
    Officer Yanez. Yes, the lieutenant mentioned that the 
officer conduct--was fighting with a gentleman with PCP. I have 
seen a lot of it while I was an officer, that you second-guess 
yourself. Like, even pulling your gun out during a situation 
where you kind of have a feeling, gut feeling. There is like--
you got to get a number for that.
    Then so many different policies. It is more of--it is so 
hard to be a proactive officer nowadays because of all the 
limitations that you have as an officer, as a liability.
    Mr. Cline. Well, it has led to 2,000 officers short this 
year, 350 resignations, lateral transfers, as you were talking 
about. The SAFE-T Act just seems to be really, really harmful, 
and the potential is going to be very dangerous.
    I am looking at, for a bond hearing, you need to establish 
proof to hold a defendant. You have to establish proof that the 
suspect committed the crime and poses a threat to the physical 
safety of a specific identifiable person.
    Wouldn't that necessitate the introduction of trial 
evidence in a bond hearing? How on Earth would you be able to 
adjudicate in a bond hearing whether a proof existed that a 
suspect committed a crime?
    Lt. Garrido. Well, here, just I think it was this morning--
or yesterday morning or this morning, an offender shot his 
neighbor's dog in the head. Officers responded. He was a foot 
chase. They recovered a backpack that he pitched that had 
weapons in it and loaded magazines. For court today, they 
actually did ask for a pretrial detention, and the judge said 
no and denied it.
    So, even if we have prosecutors that are willing to 
actually go forward with detention, now we have judges that 
will throw that one out.
    Mr. Cline. I yield back.
    Chair Jordan. The gentleman yields back.
    The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from California, Mr. 
Kiley.
    Mr. Kiley. What is happening in Chicago is a travesty, and, 
unfortunately, there are some in the world of politics who 
would prefer not to talk about what is happening in Chicago, 
who would have us become almost habituated to the horrifying 
scale of violence and death going on here. So, I think this is 
a really important hearing that we are having today, to send a 
loud and clear message that what is happening here should never 
happen in the United States of America.
    For that matter, what is happening in Manhattan should 
never happen in the United States of America. What is happening 
in L.A. should never happen in the United States. What is 
happening in San Francisco should never happen in the United 
States. San Francisco is one of the most beautiful places on 
Earth, and it is now losing people faster than any major city 
in U.S. history, largely because of the crime situation there.
    So, there is no doubt that we need to restore proper 
penalties for criminal conduct, as well as, by the way, restore 
evidence-based rehabilitation to help offenders turn their 
lives around.
    What is just as important, I believe, is we as a country 
need to restore the proper respect and admiration for our men 
and women in law enforcement. Because if you talk to any police 
chief or sheriff in any community around the country, they will 
tell you that they are understaffed, that they are having 
trouble retaining people, they are having trouble recruiting 
people.
    Here in Chicago, for example, since 2019, the Chicago force 
has lost 3,300 officers. They have only replaced about half of 
them. Lieutenant Garrido, you testified that the force is about 
2,000 officers short. Resignations increased by 65 percent from 
2000-2021. One former State prosecutor said that, ``morale 
among law enforcement in Illinois is at an all-time low.''
    It is not just happening here. A survey from 2023 by the 
Police Executive Research Forum showed that agencies are losing 
officers faster than they can hire new ones. There were nearly 
50 percent more resignations in 2022 than in 2019, such that 
the total sworn staff has dropped nearly five percent over the 
last three years.
    In my State of California, the total patrol officers 
dropped by over 13 percent over a little more than a decade. 
That means it dropped from 195 officers per 100,000 residents 
to just 169, and this level is now the lowest level since at 
least 1999-1991, which, of course, means when you have fewer 
officers patrolling the streets, that criminals are able to 
operate with greater impunity.
    So, Lieutenant Garrido, there are obviously a lot of causes 
of this problem, in particular, taking tools away from law 
enforcement officers to do their jobs and the actual defunding 
of the police. To what extent is this attributable as well to 
sort of a hangover of the Defund the Police movement and the 
toxic, malicious rhetoric that was directed at law enforcement 
by certain people in public life?
    Lt. Garrido. Oh, this is mission accomplished for the 
Defund the Police movement. When I took the exam in 1989 to 
come on the job, 35,000 people took the test with me. Now, they 
are lucky if they can get 1,500 people to take the test.
    They are actually--you can walk in the day of and actually 
take the exam if you just happen to be strolling by and see 
that there is a test being given.
    It is extremely difficult to recruit right now, and that is 
all, by and large, because of the way that our elected 
officials--and some would say maybe they don't realize it, but 
I think they do. They know exactly what they are doing, they 
know exactly what they are saying, and they are demonizing our 
officers, and they are making this job not desirable, so--
nobody wants to come on it.
    Another significant impact, my father was a Chicago police 
officer. My uncle was a Chicago police officer. At one time--I 
know Carlos' father was a Chicago police officer. At one time, 
parents would want their kids to follow in their footsteps. 
Now, there is a huge movement, I don't know anybody that would 
tell their children to come on the job now.
    Mr. Kiley. Yes.
    Lt. Garrido. That is a big portion--children of police 
officers is a large portion of our force, and they are just not 
doing it anymore.
    Mr. Kiley. That is a really important point. So, this 
message that our police officers, our men and women in law 
enforcement, are the guardians of our community. While the rest 
of us run away from danger, they run to danger. Their work is 
the cornerstone of a civil society, protecting the rule of law, 
and yet you have all this rhetoric vilifying police officers 
that sends precisely the opposite message.
    So, in addition to changing our laws, I think we really 
need to rededicate ourselves as a country to honoring and 
celebrating those folks who are in law enforcement and to have 
almost a new national campaign dedicated to celebrating law 
enforcement as an honorable calling, a noble calling to inspire 
a new generation of young people, including those who are sons 
and daughters of folks who are in law enforcement now, to want 
to serve, to see the problems that we are facing in many of our 
cities and say that, in spite of the risks, they want to be 
part of the solution because it is a function that is so 
closely tied to the public good.
    So, I think that all of us have a role to play in that. One 
thing I did is, for police week, I honored an officer in 
different departments within my district, and we call it the 
Police Honor Roll, and gave them a Congressional recognition on 
the floor of the House of Representatives.
    For citizens, just thanking officers, when you come across 
them in daily life can go a long way as well. Sort of in that 
vein and closing, I would just like to thank everyone here 
today, including our two witnesses, of course, for your service 
to your community and to our country.
    I yield back. Thank you.
    Chair Jordan. The gentleman yields back. That is a great 
point about the family and the tradition, the legacy that is 
there and how that is changing, unfortunately.
    We have three more Members. We have Mr. Fitzgerald, Mr. 
Gaetz via Zoom, and then we will finish with the gentlelady 
from this great State, Ms. Miller.
    So, Mr. Fitzgerald is recognized for five minutes.
    Mr. Fitzgerald. Thank you, Chair, and thanks everybody for 
being here this morning, thank the Fraternal Order of Police 
for hosting us. I too believe this is an important hearing.
    I know there is some criticism out there coming from, well, 
the data and the statistics may be blown out of proportion.
    My congressional seat is the suburbs of Milwaukee, and we 
have been seeing a similar trend that has been going on for 
some time.
    First, I wanted to just touch on, my father was a Chicago 
police officer. In 1966 he was sworn in, and so I grew up and 
our family grew up in the 15th District. He was there almost 
the entire time he was with the Chicago Police Department.
    One of the things that--and so this would have been in the 
1970s, right. One of the things that you saw back then that may 
be missing--and that is why I wanted to ask the question of you 
today--there used to be a sense of community policing.
    In other words, if you were certainly a beat cop in 
Chicago, you knew just about everybody that lived certainly on 
your block. You knew anybody that was in that district, or you 
had contact with them. So, there was much more of a give and 
take when it came to everyday policing.
    I am just wondering, have you seen that diminish over the 
years, and how much of that do you think is a problem?
    So, Lieutenant Garrido, can you respond to that first?
    Lt. Garrido. There are no doubt people are becoming more 
and more isolated and less community-oriented. They tried to 
start doing block clubs and different things to get people 
involved, to engage in their neighborhoods.
    Also, if you were to go out and start knocking on doors in 
some of the most violent neighborhoods in the city, the 
residents there would tell you they want the police in their 
community, they want officers there, they want those 
gangbangers off the corner. They--absolutely, they crave it.
    That is what we are hearing, the narrative that we are 
hearing is put out by the politicians. It is not the actual 
people that are on the ground in these neighborhoods. They 
actually want us there, and they want to work with us, and they 
want to make their communities safer. They don't want to have 
to worry about taking a bullet every time they go out for the 
groceries.
    Mr. Fitzgerald. Right. Officer Yanez, can you respond to 
that? What is the feel out there on the street?
    Officer Yanez. I feel that the community is scared. If they 
are seen talking to the police officers--nothing is being done 
to these offenders or criminals--so they are afraid of 
retaliation, so they avoid officers and talking to them.
    I remember one incident where we cleaned a whole block. 
They were having a illegal block party, and it was like over 
300 offenders in the street drinking alcohol and drugs. Once we 
cleared it out, we walked that whole block, because offenders 
sometimes throw firearms under cars or in a bush.
    As we were walking, the neighbors started coming out--and 
it was at nighttime, it was around 8:30 p.m.--and they started 
coming out and sitting on their porch.
    I am always the first officer that will engage in a 
conversation with the community. I spoke with an elderly lady. 
She said thank you for doing this. I can't remember the last 
time I came out in the afternoon when it got dark and sat on my 
porch and felt safe.
    Supervisors had vehicles at each end of the block. None of 
the individuals that were there on the block lived there. We 
allowed everyone that lived on the block to stay, but you 
would--none of them, I would say about 98 percent didn't live 
there, so it is really hard.
    Mr. Fitzgerald. Right.
    Officer Yanez. You make it hard for witnesses and the 
community to step up. It is just terrible.
    Mr. Fitzgerald. Yes. I think the other thing you hear 
oftentimes from officers is that, if you apprehend somebody and 
within 24 hours, 48 hours, you see that person is back on the 
street, that sends a message not only, obviously, to every 
officer that is on the street, but to other members of the 
community, that everybody knows what is going on, right? They 
know if somebody has been arrested. They know if somebody has 
been part of an incident that went down in their own 
neighborhood. Then they are back out on the street. It just 
sends the wrong message, doesn't it?
    Officer Yanez. Well, it definitely does. Actually, I would 
elaborate on that. A lot of them, the community knows who does 
the shooting, but they are so scared because now the judicial 
system, you are forced to be a witness and you got to attend. 
Let's say the witnesses have jobs. The court system, the 
attorneys, the defense attorneys, they keep continuing. It is a 
continuance all the time. The criminals, they don't care, 
because they don't have a job. They are locked up or being held 
on bond.
    So it is like, they just keep continuing it till the 
witnesses get tired of the court system. It is just terrible.
    Mr. Fitzgerald. Thank you both for your service.
    I yield back.
    Officer Yanez. Thank you.
    Chair Jordan. The gentleman yields back.
    The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Florida, Mr. 
Gaetz. I think we got him remotely. Is that right?
    Mr. Gaetz. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for holding 
this hearing. I regret I am not there with you in person, and I 
would be but for some of the ongoing negotiations regarding our 
government funding that we are working through.
    I want to followup on where my colleague, Representative 
Fitzgerald, was speaking with Officer Yanez about the 
development of witnesses. I just wonder if what we have seen 
from prosecutors that don't charge cases appropriately or that 
plead cases out for minor offenses, where people who might be 
violent are back on the streets, does that make it harder to 
get witnesses to come forward? Do the witnesses potentially 
fear that, despite their participation in the criminal justice 
system, they might be subject to some sort of retaliation?
    Officer Yanez. Oh, definitely, a hundred percent. 
Especially with this cash bond, you are going to be releasing 
offenders, and the first thing their lawyer tells them is, 
there is no victim, no witness, and there is no crime.
    So, all they are going to do is retaliate and threaten and, 
at worse, maybe kill some of these--they are going to basically 
revictimize these victims and witnesses so that they don't have 
to have a trial or court.
    Mr. Gaetz. It is just an astonishing amount of testimony 
that we have a criminal justice system that now the 
participants in that system are saying revictimizes the people 
that we are trying to protect.
    I don't believe that the answer to these questions comes 
out of Washington, but I do think hearings like this are really 
important because we want to get a sense of what some of the 
early warning signs are in a community like Chicago so that the 
challenges you face don't metastasize.
    If you were giving a briefing to another community that had 
a prosecutor with some of the same theories that the 
prosecutors have had in Chicago or some of the constraints that 
a city council might try to put on a police department, what 
would you do to warn other communities about some of the early 
things that they would want to rebuff so that their streets 
aren't turned over to the criminals like Chicago's have been?
    Officer Yanez. It is very difficult because I would also 
fear for their safety. So, it is like--I can only speak for 
myself after the incident that happened to me. I had my family 
and me move out of the city because I just felt it unsafe. I 
love the city of Chicago, and it is a beautiful city, and I 
love the people, the community. I just felt like I couldn't 
protect my family the way I used to. So, if that answers your 
question.
    Mr. Gaetz. Yes, I would love the lieutenant's perspective 
on that as well.
    Lt. Garrido. At the very basis of it is to pay attention to 
who they are voting for. It is not just with one person. It is 
not just the mayor. It is not just our prosecutor. It is the 
mayor, the prosecutors, our judges, our legislators, even our 
aldermen.
    We have--it has become such a cesspool of ill intent. They 
just--it makes no sense when people are repeatedly voting 
against their interests and putting people in place that are 
having such a negative impact on our communities. It just 
almost appears as though that everybody is somewhat blind to 
it.
    Mr. Gaetz. Yes. Getting it wrong is different than ill 
intent. Ill intent makes it seem like the whole construct of 
these policies is to end policing, whether it is to take away 
immunities, to take away policing tools.
    When you don't allow chase of the bad guys, in Florida, we 
would think that is like not having police at all, because you 
don't have the ability to bring anyone to justice that may have 
committed a criminal offense.
    Mr. Caldwell, you have heard the gentleman sitting next to 
you, Mr. Yanez, say he has left. Your brother tragically was 
the victim of a murder.
    Mr. Caldwell. Yes.
    Mr. Gaetz. Died. I guess my question to you is: Is Chicago 
savable or is the city in such a downward trajectory that our 
only hope is to make sure that these policies don't spread to 
other places?
    Mr. Caldwell. That is something that I have thought about a 
great deal since last year. Is Chicago savable? Absolutely, it 
is savable.
    We absolutely have to unite as a city, and a lot of the 
leadership that we have seen--Brandon Johnson, as you know, he 
just got elected into office, but crime is now up 29-30 
percent. If the leadership doesn't start changing, if the folks 
in Chicago don't start voting differently and demanding 
justice, versus becoming numb to what we see as a daily 
slaughter, then we can't get anything done, we can't have 
movement.
    I do believe that the city can be saved, and it is worth 
being saved.
    Mr. Gaetz. Thank you all for your testimony.
    Thank you, Mr. Chair, for having this hearing, and I yield 
back.
    Chair Jordan. The gentleman yields back.
    We now recognize the gentlelady from Illinois, Ms. Miller.
    Ms. Miller. Thank you.
    Last week, Governor Pritzker's SAFE-T Act went into effect 
here in Illinois, making Illinois the first State to do away 
with cash bail. I want to remind everybody that 100 out of 102 
States Attorneys oppose this.
    Despite Governor Pritzker and the Democrats' assurances 
that the SAFE-T Act would not result in the release of violent 
offenders, initial reports tell us a different story.
    The first individual released under this new policy had 
been arrested for pepper-spraying four police officers. Further 
reports shed light on a similar case where a man on parole for 
armed robbery and aggravated battery was once again 
apprehended, this time for the theft of merchandise valued at 
$68,000 from a DuPage--from a store in DuPage County. 
Astonishingly, he walked free after the arrest.
    The release of such an individual who clearly poses a 
significant threat to the community without requiring bail, it 
clearly shows Governor Pritzker lied to the people of Illinois.
    I want to make the statement that the first role of the 
government is to protect the people. There is a party that is 
supporting an open border and defunding the police.
    I always told my kids, there is a scripture that says a 
tree is known by its fruit. Likewise, a politician is known by 
their votes and the policies they promote. The fact is every 
Democrat voted for the SAFE-T Act and supported Governor 
Pritzker's lie to the American people, and every Republican 
voted no.
    I am so sad for you all that have been impacted, our police 
who are being defunded and demoralized. The American people do 
not support that. There are more of us than them. We are the 
normals and they are the crazies.
    What I want to know is, what is it going to take to wake 
the people up in Chicago, and especially in the communities 
that are disproportionately impacted by this violence, to 
realize that the people they are electing are promoting these 
policies and voting for it?
    It is a clear line. One hundred percent of the Democrats 
voted for Pritzker's SAFE-T Act.
    So, Lieutenant, I would like to start with you and let you 
each share what can be done to wake the people up.
    Lt. Garrido. So, several of my friends asked me why I was 
going to come here to testify today, kind of citing the 
definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over 
and expecting something different. It doesn't mean that we 
don't do anything. We can't speak up. We can't not shine a 
light on it. We have to draw attention to what is happening and 
what is going on.
    What it is going to take to wake them up, I don't know. 
Think about just the few that you listed cases of these 
offenders that are walking free or the guy who shot and killed 
his neighbor's dog this morning. These are clearly violent 
people, and that is not even enough to get them held.
    Officer Yanez. If they can't see, they can at least hear 
what is going on in the city. I believe that the bill has a 
beautiful name, but it doesn't State that. It is nothing safe 
about that. All you are going to end up doing is revictimizing 
the victim. Worse, even if they are not violent criminals for 
what they did, they are going to get out, and they are going to 
be afraid to go back to jail, and all they are going to do is 
hurt a witness or a victim or a law-abiding citizen. So, it 
just doesn't make any sense.
    Mr. Caldwell. During the most recent mayoral election, 
public safety was the No. 1 concern for Chicagoans. For the 
first time in 20 years, it wasn't the economy, it wasn't 
infrastructure. It is what people have been seeing on their 
televisions and experiencing personally.
    Today, I have a friend who is with me from my eighth-grade 
class who experienced the tragedy of two of her innocent 
brothers being murdered. So many families within the city of 
Chicago have experienced the same.
    What is going to change the trajectory, and we are going to 
see the--we are seeing the implementation of the SAFE-T Act 
now--as people see more and more of these things get out of 
control, someone is going to get fed up.
    I know that we have become numb to it here in Chicago. The 
value of human life has been eroded, but things will change as 
more and more people, whether they be on the North Side, the 
Gold Coast, the places where you don't usually see crime 
historically, the more they get fed up, and especially with 
Brandon Johnson who I don't think has been doing an effective 
job even though he just started as mayor.
    He said we can't demonize kids. The ideology of a child is 
innocent. An innocent child does not go and rob somebody. An 
innocent child at 11 years old isn't carjacking people, they 
are not murdering and shooting people. We have to hold these 
people accountable no matter what age they are, and we have to 
throw the book at them.
    Honestly, this is just where we are right now in the city 
of Chicago, no more leniency on murder and shootings. Hold 
these folks accountable and hold them accountable today.
    Ms. Miller. I would like to finish up by saying, we need to 
hold Governor Pritzker accountable and every Democrat that 
voted for the SAFE-T Act.
    Thank you.
    Chair Jordan. Well said. Well said, Mary.
    Officer Yanez, how old were you when you became a Chicago 
police officer?
    Officer Yanez. It was 2014. Thirty-two, I think.
    Chair Jordan. Thirty-two?
    Lieutenant Garrido, how old were you?
    Lt. Garrido. I was 23.
    Chair Jordan. Twenty-three.
    Lt. Garrido. I was 23.
    Chair Jordan. So, if you talked to a 32-year-old or a 23-
year-old, I think you said, today, would you encourage them to 
be a police officer?
    Lt. Garrido. Yes, but not in Chicago.
    Chair Jordan. Wow.
    Officer Yanez. I would. It is just like I tell everybody, 
you got to have a passion for it, but it is a difficult job 
right now.
    Chair Jordan. Yes.
    Officer Yanez. It is a difficult position that you are 
going to be put in. Just learn the ropes. Things will change.
    Chair Jordan. Yes. I think one or both of you testified 
earlier that so many officers are telling their sons and 
daughters, don't do it.
    Lt. Garrido. Yes, they are telling their kids not to join 
the Chicago Police Department.
    Chair Jordan. Yes.
    Lt. Garrido. There is--parents are, you know--
    Chair Jordan. Many of them are families like yours that--
where your dads were officers, right?
    Lt. Garrido. It is generational, right. It is something 
that we do and something that we love to do. So, it is 
heartbreaking to not want to guide their children to the job 
that they were so proud of doing themselves. So many times, 
they are just directing them to go elsewhere.
    Chair Jordan. That is not just Chicago. That is happening 
in other big cities around the country as well.
    Lt. Garrido. Yes.
    Chair Jordan. That, to me, is one of the scarier things 
about all the defund police and everything else they are doing, 
making your job tough. The idea that you can't chase down a bad 
guy, to me, that was like, you got to be--I am just a country 
boy from Ohio, but that seems like, you got to be kidding me. 
That is what I thought police do. It makes absolutely no sense.
    So, we want to thank you all for being here.
    I thought maybe we would end with Mr. Caldwell, if you 
could just remind us again about your brother. I think you said 
he was 18 years old.
    Mr. Caldwell. He just turned 18.
    Chair Jordan. Just had turned 18. What was he thinking 
about--or maybe even your brother and your friend's two 
brothers. Because in the end, we got to focus on how all this 
stuff is truly impacting families--
    Mr. Caldwell. Yes.
    Chair Jordan. --people--
    Mr. Caldwell. Yes.
    Chair Jordan. --human beings--fellow human beings in this 
community. That is what this--in the end, that is what it is 
all about.
    So, tell us, the last two minutes and 52 seconds, tell us 
about Christian or your friend's two brothers who were 
tragically killed as well.
    Mr. Caldwell. Christian was excited about college. That was 
his goal. As I mentioned previously, at 16, he wanted me to 
take him on a college tour outside of Chicago, which I did.
    There is so many like Christian in this town, so many good, 
innocent kids who just want to be afforded a life to live. 
Oftentimes, within the city of Chicago, whether it be through 
policies--because soft-on-crime policies come with a 
mentality--where criminals just simply take over, and they have 
no fear or regard for the repercussions of breaking the law.
    We have to change that immediately, and the way that we 
change that, and the way that we prevent another Christian or 
my friend's two brothers, prevent their deaths, is to be tough 
on crime.
    Law and order are the only way we are going to change the 
situation here in the city of Chicago. I am hopeful that this 
Committee hearing will lead to some more light on that. I am 
also disappointed that many of your colleagues on the Democrat 
side chose not to come here. Many of the folks who have said 
Black Lives Matter--and they do--but they are not showing that 
Black Lives Matter by not being here today.
    Thank you, Chair Jordan.
    Chair Jordan. Again, I want to thank you all. This has been 
very insightful for the Members of the House Judiciary 
Committee, and we appreciate the time that you took to come and 
share your story and provide answers to our questions. More 
importantly, we appreciate the service you provided to this 
community as people who put on the uniform and risk your lives.
    With that, the Committee--we will do a quick press 
conference, press availability, just outside in the tent.
    Again, we want to thank the FOP. You guys have been 
tremendous hosts, and we appreciate what you do. Thank you for 
the hospitality you have shown the Committee.
    With that, we are adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 10:39 a.m., the Committee was adjourned.]

                                 [all]