NOWICKI’S SUMMARY: Gov. JB Pritzker says he has now seen the full video of an Illinois State Police trooper shooting an unarmed mother of three. But he’s still not offering much of a comment about the Jan. 4 shooting of Rachel Tarrence in East St. Louis.
THE LATEST FROM THE GOV.: “First of all, I received a full briefing about the video and about the circumstances back in January,” Pritzker said upon questioning from CNI insider Brenden Moore at an unrelated event Tuesday in Elgin. “So that’s six months, really when it happened, we were made aware. Did not watch the video back then.”
He said he watched the video in the past week — though he didn’t directly comment on it. Instead, he pointed to the St. Clair County state’s attorney, the locally elected official who declined to charge the trooper, Gary Blake Novack.
WHY IT MATTERS: The governor has received criticism in recent days for his differing responses to two shootings that happened the same week in January.
Renee Nicole Good was shot and killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Minneapolis on Jan. 7. She was unarmed and was driving her car forward when the ICE officer, standing in front of the car and to the side, shot and killed her. Pritzker addressed the shooting the next day.
“I encourage you all to go watch the video for yourselves,” Pritzker said of the Good shooting at the time. “I’ve watched an analysis of it frame by frame. It is harrowing. It is unimaginable to think that this can happen in our country.”
SILENCE ON TARRENCE: But three days prior to the Good shooting, a similar circumstance played out in East St. Louis when Trooper Gary Blake Novack shot Rachel Tarrence, 40, an unarmed mother of three, after she was pulled over for driving a vehicle her mother had reported stolen.
Last week, the St. Clair County state’s attorney declined to charge the trooper, and Pritzker said he hadn’t seen the video when asked about the decision not to charge. The governor did, however, refer to Tarrence as a “victim.”
View this post on Instagram
BACK TO PRITZKER ON TUESDAY: “These are, you know, independently elected people who make decisions about how to keep people safe and what to enforce, how to enforce within their own jurisdictions,” he said. “He reviewed it independent of state government, independent of the Illinois State Police and made the decision that you’re highlighting not to charge.”
He once again noted ISP is in the process of reviewing whether Novack violated policy. Novack was placed on restricted duty after the shooting and remains there pending the investigation. “I have not yet heard from the ISP about that (investigation),” Pritzker said.
WILLFUL IGNORANCE? Independent candidate for governor Collin Corbett, meanwhile, is calling out what he sees as “willful ignorance” by the governor.
“Our governor shouldn’t care more about Minnesota residents than Illinois residents, simply because one shooting aligns with his political narrative and the other has the potential to hurt his national ambitions,” he said in a statement.
“I will not vilify our law enforcement officers who put their lives on the line to keep us safe,” Corbett said, calling himself a supporter of the police. “But if the St Clair County State’s Attorney is right and this shooting was lawful, then our lawmakers need to review the state’s laws governing the use of deadly force.”
In the meantime, you can sign up for our twice-weekly Capitol News Insider newsletter. You won’t be charged, but will have the option to become a paying subscriber to retain access to coverage like this once we fully launch Capitol News Insider.
