Chicago Police Department Officer John Bartholomew gave his life in the line of duty on April 25 after Alphanso Talley allegedly shot him at Endeavor Health Swedish Hospital on Chicago's North Side. Bartholomew was 38 years old, a 10-year department veteran, a husband, and the father of three.
Officer Nelson Crespo, Bartholomew's partner and a 21-year veteran, was also shot and remains in critical condition.
As Fox News reported, Talley wasn't a deer-in-the-headlights, wet-behind-the-ears naïf.
When Talley was accused of murdering Bartholomew, he was out of jail on pretrial release for a previous armed robbery case. A warrant for his arrest was issued on March 11 while he was on pretrial release for the alleged armed robbery after he had two electronic monitor violations in early March, according to court documents.
Judge John Lyke, who presided over Talley's criminal cases for at least three years, noted during a December hearing, "It appears [Talley's] mind is finally developing, and he may be on the path to making better decisions," according to ABC7 News. Those records indicated that Talley first got an electronic monitor on Dec. 11, 2025, but his monitor alerted two violations within three days in early March.
Nearly 2,000 police officers, elected officials, and law enforcement personnel filled the streets for Bartholomew's funeral. Chicago Police Department Superintendent Larry Snelling spoke with the kind of pain no police chief should ever have to carry. He told Bartholomew's children their father was a hero and said he wanted violence laid to rest alongside him.
Good and necessary words, but Chicago has become very practiced at saying solemn things after a coffin passes by, then returning to the same policies, same excuses, and same civic shrug once the bagpipes go quiet.
Then Saturday arrived with the subtlety of a brick through the storefront window. Sixteen people were shot across Chicago, making it the city's worst mass shooting of the year.
So far.
Over the full weekend, 23 people were shot, and four died. Warm weather returned, people moved outdoors, and Chicago's familiar spring pattern showed up again, as predictable as potholes after winter.
CWB broke down the heartbreaking and frustrating count.
Twenty-three people were shot across Chicago this weekend, four of them fatally, according to preliminary information released by the Chicago Police Department. The weekend total marked an increase from the same weekend last year, when 20 people were shot.
Saturday was particularly violent, with 16 people shot, making it the city’s highest single-day total of shooting victims so far this year, according to HeyJackass.com, which independently compiles and analyzes Chicago crime data. Sunday was much calmer, though, with only one shooting reported.
No incident met the threshold for a mass shooting, which is defined as four or more people shot in a single event, but one came close in Chatham on Saturday night. Police said three people were shot in the 7900 block of South Drexel Avenue when someone started shooting during an argument.
A very good friend of mine worked sales in Chicago's manufacturing plants for over 25 years. He told me many years ago that nicer weather brought more shootings. He didn't say it with academic detachment; he said it like a man who'd seen enough lunchroom conversations, loading docks, and neighborhood warnings to know the city had a rhythm nobody wanted to admit out loud.
Chicago's own public crime data tells the same story without the city hall incense; the 2026 crime database remains public, searchable, and ugly enough without anybody adding drama.
Numbers don't weep over widows, they don't attend the funerals, and they don't comfort children. They sit there, cold and stubborn, while officials find softer language for hard failure. Through the first months of 2026, Chicago's violence was already trending in the wrong direction, and the city's leaders can't keep treating shootings like weather events, as though thunder rolled in off Lake Michigan, carrying shell casings in the breeze.
Mayor Brandon Johnson leads Chicago now, and his administration keeps inheriting the same moral test previous leaders failed. When violence hits the right political pressure points, everyone discovers urgency. When regular families absorb the damage in neighborhoods without national attention, the crisis too often turns into a line item, a task force, a briefing, a grant, or some polished paragraph buried in a public safety plan.
The people of Chicago don't need another laminated promise; they need a city where police officers don't become part of any processions and repeat offenders don't keep collecting chances like reward points at a gas station.
Nobody serious argues that enforcement alone cures every wound in Chicago. Families, schools, fathers, and jobs all matter. Addiction, gangs, broken homes, and failing institutions all feed the fire.
But a city can't begin to heal while violent repeat offenders keep returning to the street faster than officers finish the paperwork. Compassion for criminals has become very fashionable in some circles. Yet, compassion for the people they shoot somehow keeps getting shoved to the back of the room, where they're expected to sit quietly and not interrupt that all-important speech.
Officer John Bartholomew deserved better, as does Officer Nelson Crespo, and, of course, the working families definitely deserve better. The businesses trying to stay open, the cops trying to make it home, and the kids trying to play outside without learning the sound of gunfire all deserve better.
Spring should mean baseball, open windows, and neighbors talking across fences. In Chicago, too often, it means another weekend count, another grieving family, and another mayoral statement polished smooth enough to slide past the blood on the pavement.
Chicago’s violence problem keeps punishing the people who still set out to live decent lives, and Officer John Bartholomew’s death should force a harder conversation than city leaders usually want to have. PJ Media keeps digging into stories the political class would rather soften, bury, or explain away. Use promo code FIGHT to get 60% off VIP access.
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