Four years ago, Kam Buckner, a Democratic state representative in Illinois, introduced a bill that would give the families of homicide victims a chance for closure by letting them petition police departments to reopen unresolved cases. The measure stalled, but each session, Buckner reintroduced it, regularly updating the bill. When Buckner renewed his effort last year, he added a companion bill that would set clear reporting requirements for Illinois law enforcement agencies.
Collectively, the measures address longstanding problems cited by policymakers and gun violence survivors alike: that police don’t solve enough homicides, and that in many municipalities, it’s hard to know exactly how many cases are cleared.
“If we’re serious about making our communities safer, you’ve got to arrest the perpetrators,” said Valerie Burgest, a gun violence prevention advocate who supports the bills. She wants police to exhaust all possible investigative leads for each case and be transparent about their work.
The Homicide Victims’ Families’ Rights Act proposed by Buckner would create a pathway for families to petition law enforcement agencies to review unsolved cases that are more than three years old. If the agency approved a full reinvestigation, a new detective would be assigned. It also defines the role of family liaison officers and mandates how many of them each law enforcement agency should employ.
The Homicide Data Transparency Act would establish a statewide standard for law enforcement agencies to track and publish monthly reports on homicides, with a template for communicating exactly how many cases have been closed.
This session, both bills are back in front of the Legislature. Buckner and his colleagues argue that they’ll help survivors of gun violence and ultimately improve public safety. But not everyone agrees. Opponents have engaged in lengthy negotiations, contending that law enforcement agencies don’t have enough manpower to meet the requirements. Supporters say it’s simply a matter of holding police departments accountable and making survivors a priority.
“Too often, our criminal justice system treats tragic murders, especially those involving Black and Brown Chicagoans, as impossible cases easily dropped at the first sign of difficulty,” Dulana Reese-Campbell, Buckner’s chief of staff, said in a statement. She said Buckner was not immediately available for an interview. “Victims and their families should get, at the very least, substantive investigations.”
Fresh eyes for old cases
People like Burgest are motivated to advocate for these bills because they’ve faced gun violence themselves. In 2013, her only son, Craig Williams, was shot and killed outside a convenience store in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood. The 23-year-old left two infants behind. More than a decade later, his case remains unsolved.
“It’s not closure, it’s accountability for me,” said Burgest, a Survivor Fellow with the Everytown Survivor Network. (Through its nonpolitical arm, Everytown provides grants to The Trace. You can find our donor transparency policy here, and our editorial independence policy here.) “People should not be able to commit crimes and (have) those crimes go unpunished.”
In Chicago, most families who’ve lost a loved one to gun violence live with the fear and uncertainty that comes from not knowing who pulled the trigger. In 2022, the Chicago Police Department made arrests in only 18.6 percent of fatal shootings, according to a Trace investigation.
Jason Moran, a commander in the Cook County Sheriff’s Office, said someone who was murdered years ago is no less important than someone killed today. “When do you stop caring?” he asked. “There is no time limit for that.”
Moran is an expert in cold cases. Large numbers of unresolved cases, he said, can be a sign of an unhealthy community. “It doesn’t just affect the families,” he said.
Because documents and evidence can be destroyed over time, Moran said, sometimes opening a cold case can be challenging. New technology and methods like advanced DNA testing, forensic investigative genetic genealogy, and the publication of more databases have helped him and other investigators find success.
Several law enforcement agencies have raised budgetary concerns over the Homicide Victims’ Families’ Rights Act; they’re worried that they don’t have enough detectives to reopen and review old cases while also working on new ones. When crime rates are high, Moran said, police departments can’t redirect resources to cold cases. He said one possible solution could be to create regional task forces that help cover these expenses, especially for smaller municipalities with fewer cases and limited means.
State Representative John Cabello, a Republican who has critiqued the bill, did not respond to calls for comment. The Illinois State Police has also opposed the bill; a representative said no one with the State Police was available for an interview. The Illinois Sheriffs’ Association also did not respond.
Clearing unsolved cases, advocates said, can serve to deter crime from happening in the first place. “When the perp is still out there and they’re still killing, they feel like they got away with murder,” said state Representative La Shawn Ford, a Democrat and co-sponsor of the bill. “They should always feel the heat that they’re being sought after.”
Creating trust through transparency
Police often say they struggle to solve homicides because witnesses and survivors are reluctant to cooperate with investigations. Survivors, though, say that detectives don’t communicate effectively or build trust with the families whose cases they’re trying to solve.
“Many times the victims’ family don’t think their loved ones matter (to detectives),” Ford said. When families can’t reach detectives or get updates on their cases, he said, they lose trust in law enforcement. Family liaison officers, who serve as a consistent line of communication between families and police officers, can help.
In addition to reviewing unsolved cases, the Homicide Victims’ Families’ Rights Act would require police departments to hire a minimum number of family liaison officers based on the average number of homicides in the agency’s jurisdiction. It would also establish how often they remain in contact with the family — at least once every 30 days for the first six months and then once a quarter while the case is active.
State Representative Kelly Cassidy, a Democrat and longtime supporter of the two bills, said data transparency is another key step in building trust.
The Homicide Data Transparency Act includes monthly homicide reporting guidelines, and would require law enforcement agencies to spell out the number of cases cleared by “exceptional means,” like an alleged perpetrator’s death, prosecutors’ rejecting a case, or the suspect’s incarceration. As it is, advocates said, police departments sometimes release misleading data that inflates their clearance rates by including cases that are closed through “exceptional means.”
While some police departments, like Chicago’s, do specify which cases are cleared by “exceptional means,” Cassidy said a statewide standard would enable a more uniform comparison between urban, rural, and suburban areas.
It’s especially important for Illinois to set the standard, Cassidy said, during the Trump administration, which has slashed some federal programs and threatened to cut more. “We ensure that as things are getting dismantled left, right, and sideways at the federal level, we’re stepping up and we’re maintaining the integrity of our systems,” she said.
No matter the political climate, Burgest said that these bills empower people to learn whether law enforcement is doing its job. “You have more power than you think you do,” she said. “You have your voice. You can raise your voice. You can hold people accountable.”
