Three years after a deadly warehouse shooting in Aurora killed five employees, Illinois State Police said they are continuing to focus on reducing a backlog of FOID card reviews.
On Feb. 15, 2019, a disgruntled employee killed five coworkers and wounded a sixth during a termination meeting at the Henry Pratt Co. warehouse in Aurora. He was killed in a shootout with police after he wounded five officers.
The shooter was a convicted felon whose state firearm owner’s identification card had been revoked five years earlier after a domestic violence conviction. But the system broke down when authorities failed to make sure he turned over any weapons in his possession and he ignored orders to relinquish his gun.
In the wake of the Pratt shooting, Illinois State Police made changes to how FOID card revocation details are shared among law enforcement agencies and created a portal listing every revoked card holder that 779 police departments are accessing, officials said.
They can view more details on the people who have had their FOID card revoked, including their recent purchase patterns and reasons for revocation. The serial numbers of all firearms reported stolen will also be included in a database.
On Tuesday, state police said in a news release they have nearly eliminated a longstanding backlog of potential firearms-prohibiting information from state and federal databases. Unanalyzed records were reduced by 97% with police reviewing over 140,000 records since 2019, officials said.
New state legislation that took effect this year boosts funding for revocation enforcement by giving $5 from every FOID card fee to the state’s revocation enforcement fund. The law also requires background checks for private gun sales or transfers beginning in 2024.
A 2019 Chicago Tribune investigation found that as many as 30,000 guns were potentially in the hands of people who’d had their FOID cards revoked in the previous four years. A follow-up review last year found improved compliance but also an increase in the number of firearms that were unaccounted for.
“No one in the Illinois State Police will ever forget the souls lost and the scars left behind from the horrible events of that day,” Illinois State Police Director Brendan Kelly said in a statement Tuesday on the anniversary of the Aurora mass shooting. “Stable budgeting, increased hiring of personnel, improved technology, changes in the law and the heartfelt commitment of the ISP have led to these steady advances, but we will never let up. All who know the pain of that day deserve nothing less.”
In 2021, state police said they thwarted over 25,000 attempts to illegally obtain a firearm. They also revoked over 70% more FOID cards in 2021 than in 2019, with 17,457 cards revoked in 2021, according to officials.
Officials said firearm enforcement details to seize weapons have also increased by 82% since they began in 2019.
