35th Ward residents deserve much better than Carlos Ramirez-Rosa
Last week, a seemingly humorous story went viral. A Logan Square man received an alarm notification from his home security service that there was an intruder inside his home on the 3400 block of West Parker Avenue.
The property owner, who has lived in the home for 15 years and has suffered a previous break-in, rushed home. The security service also alerted Chicago Police. Entering his ransacked house, the homeowner grabbed the first weapon he could find, which happened to be a frying pan. In a scene that resembled a skit on The Benny Hill Show, video captured the homeowner pursuing the intruder, striking him before the police arrived and took the uninvited guest into custody.
The alleged burglar, Bradley Willenborg, is a parolee with a jarring 12 prior convictions.
What was overlooked by the media — they miss quite a bit, of course — is the deep irony that the crime occurred in the 35th Ward. The ward's alderman, Carlos Ramirez-Rosa, also serves as the chairman of the Chicago City Council's Democratic Socialist Caucus.
Ramirez-Rosa favors cutting Chicago’s law enforcement budget. In a 2020 Chicago Sun-Times op-ed, Ramirez-Rosa and his four socialist City Council colleagues wrote:
“It’s time for our city to seriously look at cutting the police budget and directing those funds to the public programs that will support working-class and poor Chicagoans.”
In other words, “root causes” stuff. And when the far-left talks “root causes,” it usually means mental health workers assuming a greater role in matters of law enforcement.
In that same op-ed, Rosa and his DSA colleagues played some word games, claiming, perhaps correctly, perhaps not, “that 40 percent of our operations budget goes to the Chicago Police Department.” Of course, “operations budget” isn't defined by the authors. Someone quickly skimming the socialists’ editorial might end up believing that 40 percent of the Chicago municipal budget goes to the police. In fact, for the current budget, only 12 percent of funds goes to the CPD.
As for those nagging root causes of crime, during his time in prison, it's a safe guess that the home invader who found himself on the wrong end of the frying pan, Bradley Willenborg, had met with some mental health workers.
Chicago's police budget has creeped up slowly over the last few years — Rosa-Ramirez and his socialist pals have not gotten their way. Then again, perhaps they have. Only last month, Chicago's Superintendent of Police, Larry Snelling, Mayor Brandon Johnson's pick for the job, said of his department: “We're down close to 2,000 officers.”
Fortunately for the Logan Square homeowner who successfully drive an intruder away, there are still enough patrol officers to respond quickly to a break-in. What if there had not been a sufficient number of officers to respond in a timely manner or at all? What if the alleged burglar was carrying a handgun or knife and chose to fight back against either the homeowner or police?
Furthermore, what if, instead of being a prime-of-life adult, the property owner was a physically challenged senior or a child? There is more here to consider. While a guest on the November 9, 2020, Ben Joravsky Show podcast, Ramirez-Rosa said of Cook County's catch-and-release prosecutor, Kim Foxx:
“I am just so proud of our progressive state's attorney (Foxx).”
Yet apparently, she’s not radical enough for him. “I have a lot of progressive friends,” Ramirez-Rosa added, “and a lot of national and local experts in criminal justice reform who say, ‘She's not gone far enough,’ and I agree with that.” And then came Ramirez-Rosa’s punch line about Foxx: “Crime has gone down under her watch.”
This is a laughable fiction.
35th Ward residents, this is your alderman. And if you do not have one already, if you can afford it, invest in a home security system.
Last week the Chicago Tribune took aim, a bit late in the opinion of many, at leftist ideas on crime prevention:
“The prevailing progressive ethos of second, third and fourth chances for violent criminals is wearing thin on a public grown more than tired of feeling vulnerable as they walk city streets. Thankfully, we’ll have a new state’s attorney soon, and whether it is Democrat Eileen O’Neill Burke or Republican Bob Fioretti, they will need to work far more effectively with Chicago police.”
Such an approach means letting law enforcement professionals perform their duties so they can more effectively protect the public.
Returning to his seat on Javorsky's show nearly one year later, on the October 26, 2021, podcast, Ramirez-Rosa spouted out more illogic: “Historically, police have not played the role of preventing crime, they played the role of policing poor and marginalized communities.” Well, regarding those police officers who captured Willenborg in Logan Square, along with the homeowner, while you can argue neither of them prevented the alleged burglar from breaking into that man's home, it appears that Willenborg will not be committing any crimes in Chicago for a while.
Ramirez-Rosa is not just a run-of-the mill alderman. Mr. Rosa was Mayor Johnson's City Council Floor Leader. Ramirez-Rosa served as Floor Leader until he resigned under pressure after he tried to block Alderman Emma Mitts (37) from entering the floor of the City Council, presumably to prevent her from voting on a bill that would have put a non-binding resolution on the ballot asking voters if they support repealing Chicago's sanctuary city status. The resulting uproar compelled Ramirez-Rosa to resign his chairmanship of the powerful City Council Zoning Committee, but he might soon emerge as chairman of the Housing Committee.
Last year, Ramirez-Rosa was reelected to a third term. His only opponent was knocked off the ballot after a petition challenge. 35th Ward voters, you can do much better than Ramirez-Rosa, but he won’t face voters again until 2027.
What to do?
In the short term, the alderman holds his ward nights on the first and third Monday of each month, holidays excluded, presumably at his ward office. Rosa’s website, unsurprisingly, does not name a location. Rosa’s’ most recent ward night should have been last Monday, June 19, but it was cancelled due to Juneteenth, which fell on a Wednesday. Attendance at Alderman Rosa’s ward nights — do not forget, Ramirez-Rosa is a man-of-the-people socialist — is by appointment only. Our suggestion to residents is they show up at his office anyway.
It appears that the alderman of the 35th Ward also prefers to be unopposed at his ward nights.
