{"id":230308,"date":"2025-09-16T03:00:18","date_gmt":"2025-09-16T03:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/230308\/"},"modified":"2025-09-16T03:00:18","modified_gmt":"2025-09-16T03:00:18","slug":"peacekeepers-reportedly-commit-chicago-crimes-as-pritzker-calls-for-more-funding-national","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/230308\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Peacekeepers’ reportedly commit Chicago crimes as Pritzker calls for more funding | National"},"content":{"rendered":"

(The Center Square) \u2013 As Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson push for more community violence intervention funding from the federal government, two anti-violence workers have made news for alleged criminal actions.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors say seven men are charged with murder after a crash-and-grab burglary led to a crash and killed a motorist on Michigan Avenue in downtown Chicago last week.<\/p>\n

CWB Chicago reported<\/a><\/strong> that one of the men charged works as an anti-violence peacekeeper. Keller McMillan, 35, also has three out-of-state fugitive warrants and an in-state warrant.<\/p>\n

CWB said another anti-violence worker was sentenced<\/a><\/strong> to 22 years in prison for carjacking three vehicles and shooting one of the victims in the leg. Jamari Edwards, 22, received the sentence last week.<\/p>\n

CWB said Edwards worked with anti-violence groups CeaseFire and Crushers Club<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Crusher\u2019s Club\u2019s chief program officer declined an interview request for this story, saying the group is in a \u201cscheduled pause\u201d for external interviews.<\/p>\n

Crushers Club employs teens age 14 and up before placing them in community businesses. According to the organization\u2019s website, 90% of the program\u2019s youth stay out of the criminal justice system.<\/p>\n

Retired Riverside, Illinois Police Chief Thomas Weitzel said many so-called \u201cpeacekeepers\u201d have criminal backgrounds.<\/p>\n

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\n \"Texas
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\n \"Where
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\u201cWhen you see these individuals being arrested by [Chicago police] and they\u2019re also participating in violent crimes, I mean, what does that say?\u201d Weitzel asked.<\/p>\n

Pritzker and Johnson have repeatedly called for President Donald Trump to restore funding of anti-violence programs.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, Pritzker called on the president to send federal taxpayer money to Chicago instead of troops to fight crime.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would love it if he would restore funding for police, would restore funding for violence interruption programs, which we are the best in the country at, I might add,\u201d Pritzker said.<\/p>\n

The governor met with community violence intervention workers Sept. 3 at Metropolitan Peace Academy in Chicago.<\/p>\n

Weitzel said there is no data to reflect the performance of anti-violence interruptors.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow about actually committing crimes while they\u2019re working, or profiting from tax dollars? Let\u2019s face it. It\u2019s a jobs creation program. That\u2019s what this is. I wouldn\u2019t even call this violence interruption or whatever legal name they use, \u2018the peacekeepers.\u2019 This is a job creation program by Mayor [Brandon] Johnson and Governor Pritzker to, what they feel, put people to work, get them on a steady paycheck, maybe,\u201d Weitzel told The Center Square.<\/p>\n

Illinois, Cook County and Chicago taxpayers have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on anti-violence programs over the years. Pritzker’s office announced the Illinois Office of Firearm Violence Prevention has spent more than $375 million to “reduce violence and support Community Violence Intervention (CVI) programs.”\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(The Center Square) \u2013 As Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson push for more community violence…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":175648,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[960,4219,25146,39066,5386,1818,12084,2936,39085,7207,8572],"class_list":{"0":"post-230308","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-chicago","9":"tag-crime","10":"tag-criminal-justice","11":"tag-criminal-law","12":"tag-il","13":"tag-illinois","14":"tag-jb-pritzker","15":"tag-law-enforcement","16":"tag-misconduct","17":"tag-police","18":"tag-violence"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115211745736796858","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230308"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230308\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/175648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}