Rep. Blaine Wilhour says the outbreaks in prisons are a failure of Gov. Pritzker and Mayor Lightfoot.
Rep. Blaine Wilhour says the outbreaks in prisons are a failure of Gov. Pritzker and Mayor Lightfoot.
Illinois state Rep. Blaine Wilhour (R-Beecher City) is pointing an accusatory finger at Gov. J.B. Pritzker is the widening outbreak of the coronavirus within the walls of a suburban prison system.
“Another day and another insufferable press conference in Chicago as the inept mayor and governor assess blame to deflect from more of their own dismal failures,” said Wilhour, who made it a point of adding Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot to his list for criticism even as Pritzker remained his main target.
“Again, we see him putting his political agenda ahead of all else,” he added. “By going against sound advice and refusing to lock down the state prisons he recklessly put the health of our prison workers at risk, including 17 staff members at Statesville who have contracted the virus.”
According to the Chicago Reporter, as of April 3 at least 66 people at the facility had tested positive for the virus, 17 of them being prison staffers. Throughout the entire 40,000 inmate prison system, 53 prisoners had tested positive as of that date, along with 27 staff members with 187 other tests still pending.
At Chicago’s Cook County Jail, the number of positive coronavirus cases also recently spiked.
“The governor locked down law abiding citizens but refused to lock down prisons, completely unacceptable, failure of leadership,” Wilhour added.
“To the folks who have to work in prisons under these conditions, I apologize that our governor values the ACLU and social justice warriors more than you,” Wilbur said.
More recently, Pritzker told the Sun-Times his office had moved to deploy some 30 medics from the Illinois Army National Guard to Stateville, where they were expected to set up medical tents and triage to provide medical care for the inmates.
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