Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson was the first blue-state politician to seek a ban on the sale of Glock handguns because they can be illegally converted to fire full auto, but he's far from the last to do so. Since Johnson made his announcement last year a growing number of cities and states have piled on with lawsuits of their own, seeking to hold the gunmaker responsible for the actions of criminals.
But a recent investigation by the Chicago Sun-Times found that while Johnson has been eager to point the finger at the gunmaker for Chicago's continued elevated rates of violence, the mayor has failed to deliver on a campaign pledge to increase the number of police detectives even though less than 10% of non-fatal shootings ever end in an arrest.
Tom Wagner was working as a rideshare driver when he got shot during a carjacking on the West Side in 2021.
The shooting left a jagged scar across his abdomen where bullets pierced his gallbladder, colon and liver.
After three years of calling detectives for updates — including 10 months during which he says he got no response at all — Wagner says he found out last month that the police have formally dropped the investigation of his shooting without an arrest.
“I get that they’re understaffed,” Wagner says. “But at the same time, where’s my justice?”
Wagner is among more than 19,000 people wounded in shootings in Chicago since 2018. The Chicago Police Department has made arrests in 1,200 of those cases.
Last year alone, there were 2,300 nonfatal shootings in Chicago. The police made arrests in just 141 of them — a “clearance” rate of about 6%, a Chicago Sun-Times investigation has found.
Mayor Brandon Johnson pledged during his campaign to hire 200 more detectives. But records show the number of detectives assigned to at least one shooting actually has fallen by nearly 20%, with 40 fewer investigators in 2024 than the police department had the year before.
Experts say the chronic lack of arrests is a big part of the reason for as many shootings as there are in many Chicago neighborhoods plagued by gunfire.
That makes sense. It stands to reason that if criminals can shoot someone and only face consequences in the criminal justice system 6% of the time, they're going to rightfully believe that they can get away with murder or aggravated assault. The homicide clearance rates are a little better than the arrest rates for non-fatal shootings, but not by much.
Chicago’s murder clearance rate is 56%, according to the department, but that includes “exceptional clearances” where no arrest was made because the suspect was killed or because prosecutors declined to bring charges. The percentage of murders cleared by an arrest in Chicago is only 25%. In New York City, it’s more than 50%.
More police alone won't fully address the problem, but Johnson's failure to deliver on his campaign pledge while scapegoating companies like Glock isn't helping anyone besides the gun control lobby. And as the Sun-Times discovered, those living in high-crime neighborhoods are disproportionately impacted by the mayor's unwillingness to take concrete steps to improve the clearance rates.
Some of the city’s most violent neighborhoods have some of the highest rates of shooting cases that end up being “closed” without anyone being arrested, the Sun-Times found.
In Pullman, there’s been just one arrest in dozens of nonfatal shootings in that South Side neighborhood in the past six years.
...The volume of shootings assigned to a relatively small number of investigators in Chicago means officers have little time to devote to any one case.
One-quarter of the detectives working shooting investigations in Chicago in 2024 were assigned more than 10 cases over the course of the year. And 10% of them had more than 20 cases — on top of the cases they had from past years and general assignments.
“In some districts, in the summer, you might be getting five or seven shooting cases a week,” one retired detective says. “And most districts, that’s not the only kind of case you’re going to be working.
“Even if you wanted to run down every case like [it was] a murder, there’s just no time to do it,” he says. “And you’re not going to get approved for any overtime unless it’s a case that’s been in the news.”
Department records show that 80% or more of nonfatal shooting investigations are “suspended” each year, meaning officers assigned to those cases no longer are actively investigating them. Slightly fewer than half of all cases are suspended within 30 days, according to police department figures.
Chicago needs to be putting more detectives on the street, but that certainly doesn't seem to be priority for Johnson or top aides like Kennedy Bartley, who has previously advocated for abolishing police departments and referred to law enforcement as "f***ing pigs". Violence interrupters and community activists aren't going to clear homicides or make arrests in non-fatal shootings, no matter how many non-profits the city funds. And while there is a place for proven and effective programs that are designed to stop high-risk offenders from committing a violent crime in the first place, that's only one piece of a public safety puzzle that must include an effective law enforcement presence.
Instead, Johnson's paying lip service to policing while using the courts to shut down access to the most popular handgun in the country. The criminals who are illegally acquiring (and modifying) their pistols won't be impacted by the city's lawsuit against Glock. It will be those Chicago residents who want to protect themselves from the unchecked predators in their midst who are really harmed by the mayor's anti-gun crusade.
