(Jewish Voice News) The horrific attack on 26-year-old Bethany MaGee aboard Chicago’s L train has become the latest — and perhaps most devastating — indictment of the city’s long-championed “restorative justice” experiment.
Federal officials revealed Sunday that the man accused of dousing MaGee in fuel and setting her on fire is a career criminal with a staggering 72 prior arrests, someone who has spent decades cycling in and out of a justice system increasingly dominated by progressive ideology over public safety.
Judge Teresa Molina-Gonzalez (D) who let Lawrence Reed out before he lit a woman on fire despite prosecutors begging to keep him detained and 72 prior arrests, basically admits she’s a DEI hire and rules based on how people look pic.twitter.com/eIKOjptiOj
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) November 23, 2025
U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy took to social media to condemn the failure in plain terms, writing, “It is devastating that a career criminal with 72 PRIOR ARRESTS is now accused of attacking 26-year-old Bethany MaGee on Chicago’s L train, and setting her on fire. This would never have happened if this thug had been behind bars. Yet Chicago lets repeat offenders roam the streets. Chicago’s carelessness is putting the American people at risk.”
At the center of the controversy is Democrat Judge Teresa Molina-Gonzalez, who previously acknowledged she was elevated to the bench as a DEI hire and has openly stated that she considers socioeconomic status, sex and race when determining her rulings — a framework praised by activists but increasingly criticized in the face of mounting violent crime. Molina-Gonzalez was the judge who approved the release of the suspect, Lawrence Reed, despite an extraordinary criminal history.
It is devastating that a career criminal with 72 PRIOR ARRESTS is now accused of attacking 26-year-old Bethany MaGee on Chicago’s L train, and setting her on fire.
This would never have happened if this thug had been behind bars. Yet Chicago lets repeat offenders roam the… https://t.co/1vaHyCd8sp
— Secretary Sean Duffy (@SecDuffy) November 23, 2025
According to the criminal complaint, MaGee was seated on the train shortly after 9 p.m. on Nov. 17 when Reed allegedly approached from behind and doused her with a flammable liquid. When she tried to escape, Reed chased her down and set her ablaze. Witnesses rushed to help the young woman as she collapsed onto the platform, but she remains hospitalized with critical, life-threatening injuries.
Surveillance video captured Reed buying fuel at a gas station only 20 minutes before the attack and pouring it into a water bottle — evidence prosecutors say demonstrates chilling premeditation. Reed is now facing federal terrorism charges and could be eligible for the death penalty.
But the most disturbing part of the story is how predictable it was.
As federal authorities noted, Reed has 22 arrests just since 2016, and 53 separate criminal cases in Cook County dating back to 1993. Despite pleading guilty to nine felonies, he has been incarcerated only twice, serving a combined total of about two and a half years. Less than 90 days before the L-train attack, he violently assaulted a female social worker, leaving her with “optic nerve damage and a concussion.”
Yet instead of keeping a violent repeat offender detained, the system — guided by left-wing theories about “second chances,” non-carceral interventions, and equity-based decision-making — put him back on the streets once again.
Now, prosecutors who once argued for leniency are scrambling to keep Reed locked up, pleading in federal court: “Reed had plenty of second chances by the criminal justice system, and as a result you have an innocent victim in the hospital fighting for her life.”
For critics, the attack is a tragic but inevitable example of what happens when ideology replaces accountability in the criminal-justice system. Bethany MaGee and her family are now paying the price for a political experiment gone disastrously wrong — one that left a violent, habitual offender free to inflict unimaginable harm on a stranger riding home on public transit.
