The killing of 24-year-old Emma Shafer two years ago came as a terrible shock to the Illinois capital city of Springfield.
The suspect in her murder has been caught after he reportedly fled to his home country of Mexico, and the race is on to use Shafer’s death to advance a political agenda. Once again, the people of Illinois are bystanders in a face-off between a Trump administration eager to strike a blow against a Democrat-run state, and Democrats led by Gov. J.B. Pritzker who see an occasion ripe for posturing.Caught in the middle of this political struggle is the memory of a young woman killed in a horrific act. We sincerely hope that her family will get the justice they deserve, along with respect for their daughter’s formidable legacy.
Shafer was stabbed to death at her apartment on South 8th Street in Springfield, not far from Frank Lloyd Wright’s historic Dana-Thomas House. A grand jury indicted her former boyfriend, Gabriel Calixto, on first-degree murder and aggravated domestic battery charges.
Calixto was apprehended in Mexico on Aug. 28 and as of last week awaited extradition.
Shafer left behind a record of activism that belied her years.
In the months before her death, she had worked as an organizer with the Faith Coalition for the Common Good, reportedly setting up forums for local political candidates. She was an incoming board member of an immigrant advocacy group, membership chair for a local Sierra Club chapter and a volunteer at other community groups, according to her obituary.
She interned for U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., worked in the New York City Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs, and clerked at the Illinois House of Representatives. Her death prompted an outpouring of public grief and justifiable anger. It’s sickening to think of such a promising young adult being cut down in a suspected act of domestic violence.
Making matters worse for her family was Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who seized the moment to advance President Donald Trump’s agenda.
In May, Noem came to Springfield to bash Pritzker, citing cases in which immigrants in the U.S. without legal permission committed crimes, and saying Calixto should have been deported years ago. Her decision to stage a news conference near the house where the progressive-minded Shafer was killed touched off a firestorm. Shafer’s family denounced the cynical use of her death to advance what it described as the Trump administration’s “heartless” anti-immigrant actions.
Just as cynically, Noem claimed that Illinois policies barred state or local authorities from assisting the feds in capturing the accused. That was false: Illinois authorities worked with the U.S. Marshals Service to arrest and charge the suspect.
After last month’s arrest, Noem doubled down, issuing a news release that misspelled Shafer’s name in the headline. Emphasizing the difference in their immigration status, it paired a color photo of a blonde, fresh-faced Shafer with a dark and menacing mugshot of the suspect, described by Noem without even a nod to legal due process as a “vicious, illegal-alien murderer.”
Noem’s actions aren’t surprising, and yet it’s worth noting this tragic story’s connections to other well-known, recent killings. In Athens, Georgia, Laken Riley was killed last year by an unauthorized immigrant, Jose Ibarra, who was sentenced to life without parole for her murder. Riley’s father, who said he supports Trump’s actions, added that “I’d rather her not be such a political, how you say — it started a storm in our country.”
For Pritzker, who is eyeing a White House run, Noem’s charged narrative gave him an opportunity to present himself as an antidote to the Trump administration’s excesses.
Yet Pritzker, too, has gone way too far. His recent rhetoric personally insulting the president does not serve the state’s interests. And his comments about how Chicago and Illinois don’t need federal help to fight crime were always ill-advised, as this page warned. Pritzker’s comments ran into a hail of bullets over Labor Day, with nine killed and 52 wounded in the city’s most violent weekend of the summer.
Contrary to Pritzker’s wishful thinking, Chicago and Illinois most certainly do need robust cooperation between local, state and federal authorities to stop violent crime — and bring dangerous criminals such as Shafer’s killer to justice. The fact that state and local authorities worked together with federal marshals to make progress in the Shafer case is an example of the good results that can happen when law enforcement professionals tune out hotheaded pols and do their jobs.
Let’s have more of that. The bullying, baiting and cynicism that we’ve seen on display over this past year will not — repeat, not — reduce crime. Instead, law enforcement at every level needs to pool resources and brainpower to save lives, preventing more parents from losing their children.
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