The Chicago man charged with first degree murder and attempted murder in the Swedish hospital shooting of two police officers is scheduled to appear in court for another detention hearing Thursday.
Alphanso Talley, 26, was being escorted Saturday by two Chicago police officers to Endeavor Health Swedish Hospital after being arrested for armed robbery earlier in the day. While inside, Talley concealed a gun, prosecutors said, before pulling it out and shooting both officers, killing one.
The incident has raised questions about Illinois’ SAFE-T Act, which eliminated cash bail in the state. According to authorities, Talley was awaiting trial in another felony case and had been place on electronic monitoring when the shooting took place.
He also had a lengthy criminal record, dating back nearly 10 years. Talley was in and out of jail for charges including armed robbery and carjacking, often being placed on mandatory supervised release.
How does the SAFE-T Act work?
Under Illinois’ SAFE-T Act, it’s largely up to judges to decide who gets locked up, as judges either decide to detain or not detain defendants in cases. The goal was to keep dangerous people detained pending their trial, and not to keep someone accused of lesser offenses locked up just because they can’t afford bail.
In order to remain detained under the SAFE-T Act, judges must decide someone is a flight risk or a safety threat. To be held, the suspect must be charged with specific crime, including certain felonies like first-degree murder and armed robbery, sex offenses, weapons offenses, domestic violence offenses or violating an order of protection.
It’s largely up to the judge’s discretion.
NBC 5 Investigates found that in January of 2026, a judge ruled Talley could go to college and didn’t have to stay home anymore. Court documents show his ankle monitor device stopped connecting in March, and he missed curfew.
That same month, he missed a court date, leading to a warrant for his arrest.
Tuesday, Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke said she did not agree with the judge’s decision to release Talley.
“We established that he had four pending violent felonies, and in spite of that, he was placed on electronic monitoring. Electronic monitoring system is broken. It does not work. It is not keeping people safe. So the State’s Attorney’s office is going to continue to ask for detention each and every time we believe someone presents a danger,” she said.
House Republicans have introduced 40 bills to make changes to the law.
‘We need better laws’
Wednesday, House Republican Leader Tony McCombie, R-Savanna; and Senate Republican Leader John Curran, R-Downers Grove; advocated for a new proposal meant to keep offenders from committing another crime while they already have a pending case.
“The question is no longer if reform is needed, it’s how many more tragedies need to happen before action is taken place,” McCombie said.
Under their proposal, if someone is out on electronic monitoring and commits another felony, the judge must revoke their release and keep them in jail until their case is finished.
“We need better laws. We need better rules. This decision never should have been in front of this judge. It should have already been a mandatory hold,” Curran said.
Gov. JB Pritzker said he would look at the GOP bill, but in Talley’s case, he believes the judge made a mistake.
“It’s a tragedy what’s happened. Awful. And as you’ve seen in most of the cases where Republicans have complained about the SAFE-T Act it’s actually been a bad decision by an elected judge,” Pritzker said at a separate event Wednesday.
Alexa Van Brunt, clinical professor of law at the Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, said the SAFE-T Act has largely been a success.
“We have seen low crime rates, even as fewer people are getting detained statewide. We see in Cook County that 94% of people on pretrial release are not committing future criminal offenses while they’re out,” Van Brunt said.
Van Brunt went on to defend the SAFE-T act, saying the events that transpired weren’t a failure of the law.
“What is clear though is that this is not a failure of the Safe-T Act,” she said. “Under the Safe-T Act, this man could have been detained. There was a warrant out for his arrest already. It had been issued in March. So it was not as if he was not on the radar of law enforcement authorities, and a judge had already called for him to be arrested. There was a pending warrant.”
One failure she sees is the lack of statewide data collection that could show how the law is working across different counties.
As for electronic monitoring, she said usage has gone up since the SAFE-T Act went into effect and doesn’t see that as a positive change.
O’Neill Burke said Tuesday it’s not an alternative to detention.
“Electronic monitoring system is broken. It does not work. It is not keeping people safe,” O’Neill Burke said.
Cook County Chief Judge Charles Beach said he takes concerns about electronic monitoring seriously, and his office worked to strengthen protocols in January. His office will not comment further on the specifics of the case.
