The violent firebug accused of setting a young woman ablaze Monday on a Chicago train was previously nabbed for an arson attack on a government building just as Gov. J.B. Pritzker was due to speak — but the maniac got away with a slap on the wrist.
Lawrence Reed, now 50, never served any time and was only given probation despite being convicted of the arson incident in April 2020, court documents show.
Lawrence Reed, 50, never served any time and was only given probation after lighting up a government building in 2020 just before Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker was set to speak. Chicago PDThe nut went on to allegedly douse a 26-year-old Illinois straphanger with gasoline Monday, chase her through the train car and then set her alight while shouting, “Burn alive, bitch!” The woman is now critical with burns to her head and body.
“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,” outraged ATF special agent-in-charge Christopher Amon has said.
In his 2020 case, the career criminal approached the city’s Thompson Center building armed with two red cans before he poured liquid through a window and set it alight, cops said.
The crime unfolded just minutes before Pritzker was scheduled to give a COVID-19 news conference in the building.
Reed has now been hit with a federal terrorism charge over Monday’s caught-on-camera train horror in Chicago. APReed was arrested and charged with aggravated arson but was sentenced in the Circuit Court of Cook County to just probation.
He was arrested several other times, too, for various offenses before he was accused of carrying out the heinous attack on the innocent straphanger on the Chicago train Monday night.
In total, Reed has been nabbed 71 times in Cook County alone and convicted in 13 of those cases.
At the time of Monday’s train attack, Reed was out on pretrial release for an aggravated battery charge for knocking a hospital social worker unconscious.
The suspect’s previous arson crime unfolded just minutes before Pritzker was scheduled to give a COVID-19 news conference. REUTERSProsecutors had asked for Reed to remain locked up in the case, but a judge overruled them — leaving him free to roam the streets.
“Lawrence Reed had no business being on the streets given that his violent criminal history and his pending criminal cases,” Amon said.
He has been hit with a federal terrorism charge in Monday’s caught-on-camera horror and is due in federal court Friday.
