The same criminal justice reform activists who claim our system is “broken” because it is too harsh on criminals have managed to break it in the other direction. People are paying for it with their lives.
Jillian Ludwig, an 18-year-old college student, was shot and killed by “a stray bullet” last week. The man arrested in her death is Shaquille Taylor, who is accused of shooting at a moving vehicle, which led to the “stray bullet” that killed Ludwig. In case you hadn’t guessed, Taylor has a criminal history stretching back to 2010, including an incident in 2021 in which he fired his gun at a car while a woman and her two young children were inside.
This isn’t just your standard story about a violent career criminal being given a slap on the wrist repeatedly up until he allegedly killed someone, though. Taylor was charged with three counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon for that crime. Those charges were then dismissed outright because Taylor was deemed incompetent. Doctors who examined him in jail decided that “further training (or medical care) would not change” his competency.
Therefore, the violent would-be murderer was simply released back onto the street. Not only was he not put in jail, but he wasn’t put in any mental institution either. He was simply deemed so incompetent that he was allowed to be a violent would-be murderer up until he allegedly became a violent killer after shooting at a moving vehicle, which is exactly what he was charged with in 2021.
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There is no excuse for this. There is no reasonable explanation for a man with a history of shooting at people to be let free in society to continue to do so. He may not have been competent enough to stand trial, but he was also clearly too violent to be left to his own devices. And what exactly is the plan with him now? Is he going to be set free again after allegedly committing a murder because he is “incompetent?” And if not, why was he set free in the first place?
The easiest question when it comes to crime and public safety should be what to do with violent career criminals. The clear answer is to keep them off the streets, whether they are “competent” or not. Jillian Ludwig is dead because our system is, in fact, broken, and it is broken on behalf of violent criminals like Taylor.