Fifty-year-old Lawrence Reed has become the latest face of America’s out-of-control big-city crime epidemic. Maybe he’ll drag Judge Teresa Molina-Gonzalez into the spotlight along with him.
Reed, as you may have heard, now has over 70 arrests tagged to him over the years. On Monday night, he reportedly set a young woman on fire on a Chicago’s CTA train. On Tuesday, as he was arrested, the New York Post reported, he yelled “burn alive b****!”
When he appeared in court, he was visibly mentally unwell, saying, “I plead guilty, I plead guilty,” numerous times.
“I don’t want an attorney,” and, “I’ll be my own attorney,” Reed said, although he was apparently unaware of what he was being charged with: “Terrorism? What is this all about?” he said after being hit with federal terrorism charges.
The 26-year-old woman he allegedly set ablaze was left fighting for her life with burns over 50 percent of her body. Yet, when this career criminal came before Cook County Judge Teresa Molina-Gonzalez in August on an aggravated battery charge and was told he was “a real and present threat to the safety of … the community as a whole,” her response?
“I can’t keep everybody in jail because the state’s attorney wants me to.”
Lawrence Reed doused a woman in fuel and set her on fire on a Chicago train. As the woman burned, he screamed: “Burn alive b*itch!”
He has been arrested 72 times in Cook County and prosecuted 13 times.
Those that set him free must be held responsible. pic.twitter.com/eYSqnb1s7Z
— Frank McCormick (@CBHeresy) November 19, 2025
Yes, it turns out in yet another eerie echo of the murder of Iryna Zarutska aboard a Charlotte, North Carolina light rail train in August, the judge allowed the serial criminal back out on the streets despite an extensive criminal history and warnings from prosecutor Jerrilyn Gumila that electronic monitoring was “wholly insufficient.”
Should this judge be removed from her position?
“It could not protect the victim or the community from another vicious, random, and spontaneous attacks,” she told the judge, according to CWB Chicago, an independent news outlet.
On Aug. 19, Gumila told the judge, Reed assaulted a social worker inside the psychiatric ward of MacNeal Hospital, a facility outside Chicago. Video showed that when “Reed became irate and slapped the victim in the face with an open palm,” the prosecutor said.
“Her vision went black, and she lost consciousness for several seconds. One of the victim’s co-workers rushed over and helped the victim walk down to her office, and the victim was then taken to the emergency room.”
The public defender, meanwhile, said that Reed had gotten on the correct dosage of his medications since the assault, according to the New York Post. This was on Aug. 22, mind you — just days after the attack.
“Mr. Reed needs services, he does not need to be incarcerated for being mentally ill and acting in accordance with his mental illness,” the public defender argued.
Gumila, who went through Reed’s extensive criminal history, disagreed. “The defendant poses a real and present threat to the safety of, especially this victim, whoever else was working in the hospital that day, and the community as a whole,” she said.
“The defendant randomly and spontaneously became irate in this situation where the victim was just attempting to do her job as a social worker, and now, as a result, suffered injuries so severe that she still has side effects on a daily basis.”
The judge’s response? “I understand your position, but I can’t keep everybody in jail because the state’s attorney wants me to, but I understand and respect your position,” she told Gumila.
This unfolded precisely how you would expect. As the New York Post reported:
The judge allowed him to leave his home 40 hours a week — 24 hours more than the 16 allotted under the state’s SAFE-T Act permitting defendants with electronic monitoring to leave home 16 hours a week for “essential” activities. …
Court papers filed Wednesday in the state case against Reed for the train attack show that Reed had violated his curfew a handful of times in November, including on the day of his attack.
He stayed out past his curfew Nov. 9, Nov. 12, Nov. 13, Nov. 14, Nov. 15 and on Monday, court records show, indicating on some of those days, there was an “escalated alert.”
While Illinois has a Pretrial Fairness Act, under which a judge cannot hold even felony defendants for trial unless they’re a danger to the community or a flight risk, even the most disinterested observer could note that Reed was an exceptional case.
What, we were to believe that after 70-odd arrests, including a 2020 arson charge, that he was going to start taking his medication as directed and that it would be effective? Did Judge Molina-Gonzalez believe he’d really begun learning his lesson after arrest No. 72?
Again, as we saw in the murder of Zarutska — the Ukrainian war refugee who was stabbed to death by a man with a long psychiatric history with no provocation — we also have a judge who ignored reality. She can’t just put every 70-time arrestee who comes before her in jail because of his criminal history, you hear?
When an entirely predictable atrocity happens because a verifiable lunatic is allowed to roam the streets, it shouldn’t just be the lunatic who faces consequences.
Supposedly sane people allowed this to happen. If we’re going to prevent totally preventable random crime in our big cities, it’s time to start holding those in the legal system to account for juridical negligence.
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