Illinois House Minority Leader Tony McCombie recently stated that penalty enhancements are often warranted, but the Democrat majority only supports penalty enhancements when it fits their agenda.
In 2018 DCFS worker Pam Knight was beaten while trying to take a 2-year-old boy into protective custody in Milledgeville. She died a few months later in a Chicago hospital.
Leader McCombie filed legislation which would raise the penalties for those attacking a DCFS worker to equal that of a teacher or a fire-fighter. However, House Democrats fought against the measure because of their dislike of penalty enhancements.
According to McCombie, since Knight’s murder, Democrat leadership has allowed 148 penalty enhancements but refuse to adopt them when matters of public safety and security are at stake.
McCombie took to the House floor last week during debate on a Dem bill which included a penalty enhancement.
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The leader said penalty enhancements work to enforce public safety, to hold repeat offenders accountable, and to protect victims of violent crimes. The murder of Pam Knight and efforts to heighten penalties to protect front-line workers have fallen to the wayside.