After Alphonso Talley allegedly killed Chicago Police Officer John Bartholomew and critically wounded another officer at Swedish Hospital last weekend, Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke blasted a judge for placing Talley on electronic monitoring months earlier. But court records show her office never asked the judge to reconsider his release order, never appealed it, and did not try to jail Talley when he violated monitoring rules.
Talley is also accused of beating and robbing a Family Dollar cashier in Albany Park before shooting the two officers with a gun prosecutors said he kept hidden on his body after being arrested. A seven-time convicted felon, he had absconded from electronic monitoring six weeks earlier while awaiting trial on armed carjacking and armed robbery charges.
“Electronic monitoring is not an alternative to detention. It does not keep people safe,” O’Neill Burke said Tuesday, calling the county’s monitoring program “broken.”…