Daley: Feds ignore guns, drugs for Bonds, Vick

CITY HALL | Wants shift in priority away from celebrity cases
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February 24, 2009

BY FRAN SPIELMAN City Hall Reporter
Mayor Daley on Tuesday questioned the priorities of a federal government that has indicted Barry Bonds and convicted Michael Vick but done what he described as too little to stop drug and gun trafficking that’s killing the nation’s young people.

“Michael Vick on dog-fighting. Think of that. There’s only one case in the history of the country of a federal crime [for] dog-fighting. We get dog-fighting cases all the time. They have to go to 26th Street,” Daley said of the case involving the imprisoned Atlanta Falcons quarterback.

Questioning Vick’s five-year sentence, Daley said, “They could have fined him five, 10, 15, 20 million dollars. That would have been better. And put the money into good causes. It serves a purpose [to throw him in jail]? What? One person out of a thousand cases-a-year? He’s the only one.”

Daley then turned his attention to Bonds, the disgraced home run king who was indicted in November, 2007 on perjury and obstruction of justice charges tied to the steroids scandal that still hovers over Major League Baseball.

“There won’t be any athletes today. We’re after Barry Bonds for steroids. For what? You go after the distributor — the person [responsible for] that sale. Why Barry Bonds? I can’t understand. We’re spending millions of dollars on this,” the mayor said.

“To go after Barry Bonds in this day and age with [other higher] priorities — I just wonder why,” he said.

For years, Daley has been exhorting the Internal Revenue Service to “follow the money trail” left behind by drug dealers who accumulate homes, cars and jewelry while peddling their poison.

Now, the mayor is going a step further — by wondering aloud why a federal government that has devoted vast resources toward the pursuit of corrupt politicians and high-profile professional athletes can’t “chew gum and walk at the same time.”

“If someone takes a hundred dollars — it could be a Chicago policeman or anybody else — the feds are right there knocking on your door. But they cannot find the person who’s accumulating all the money. It’s amazing. Only in America we can’t find ’em. ‘We can’t find these people,’ the feds tell us. ‘We don’t know who they are,’ ” Daley said.

“We can chase all the kids around the corner. But who’s taking the money? The IRS can’t find ’em. They can find Barry Bonds and Michael Vick. But they can’t find a drug dealer. They can come right here to the Chicago Police Department and they’ll give ’em the names. The public knows that. They know the federal government doesn’t go after them. The IRS doesn’t step up to the plate.”

Randall Samborn, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office, declined to comment on the mayor's remarks.

Daley’s broadside came during a news conference at police headquarters called to unveil his annual package of gun-control legislation.

The only new features are proposals to increase penalties for shooting students on or near school grounds and public transit and to close the “loophole” that permits private sale of handguns without a criminal background check.