Democratic Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker made multiple apparent attempts to portray Chicago as safe, just months before an illegal immigrant allegedly murdered a college freshman at one of the city’s parks.
Authorities charged Venezuelan national Jose Medina-Medina with the murder of 18-year-old Loyola University Chicago student Sheridan Gorman, who was fatally shot in the head while at a lakeside park with friends early Thursday morning to see the Northern Lights, multiple local outlets reported. As his name appears as a potential 2028 presidential candidate, Pritzker has repeatedly gone out of his way to convince people that Chicago is a safe city, despite suffering from a lengthy violent crime crisis.
In September 2025, the governor posted a 46-second-long video of himself to X, taking an early morning stroll at another park along Lake Michigan’s shoreline. The clip was noticeably filmed before the sun was up, with the text “One beautiful morning, Chicago!”
“Here on the South Side, early morning. Lots of runners coming by on the lakefront path, Lakefront Trail. Absolutely gorgeous,” Pritzker said in the video. “Walking around here early morning on the south Lakefront Trail, South Side. Just gorgeous. Look at that overpass over Lakeshore Drive. Really beautiful.”
“And of course, facilities for everybody and a great lakefront,” the governor continued before saying “Good morning” to a passing jogger.
“Just listening to Bruce Springsteen,” he added.
“Our thoughts are with the family, friends, and Loyola University community grieving the senseless murder of Sheridan Gorman. Violent crime has no place in our streets, and we expect the alleged perpetrator to be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law,” a spokesperson for Pritzker’s office told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “The Trump Administration needs to stop politicizing heinous tragedies and instead focus on real solutions, like reinstating federal funds to prevent violence that support our public safety efforts.”
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) issued a detainer for Medina-Medina on Sunday, ABC7 Chicago reported, citing the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The DHS also told the outlet that Gorman’s suspected murderer had entered the U.S. illegally when former President Joe Biden was in office and was arrested in 2023 for shoplifting.
Pritzker has in recent months feuded with President Donald Trump over ICE and supported a January lawsuit brought by his state against the Trump administration’s DHS.
“We have watched in horror as unchecked federal agents have aggressively assaulted and terrorized our communities and neighborhoods in Illinois, undermining Constitutional rights and threatening public safety,” the governor said via a Jan. 12 press release from his office, regarding the suit.
In August 2025, Pritzker posted another video to X, taken during early morning, in an apparent attempt to cast Chicago as a safe city.
Captioned “Good morning from Chicago!” the video similarly shows a lakeside trail packed with joggers in a visibly low-crime Windy City neighborhood. Â The governor specifies in the video that it was taken at 6 a.m., with the sunrise visible over Lake Michigan.
In this video, the Democrat specifically addresses critics of his characterization of Chicago stating, “We have a lot of people running, having a great time. Doesn’t feel like a hellhole here. In fact, everybody’s having a great time and enjoying themselves.”
“So, I don’t know who in Washington thinks that Chicago is some sort of hellhole, but, you may need to look inward,” he added in August 2025 video. Trump notably used the word “hellhole” to refer to the city the following month.
A total of 123 murders took place in Chicago over the 2025 months of June, July and August combined, averaging to over one murder per day, according to a WBEZ Chicago analysis. Still, the analysis found that the total number of murders in the summer months was the lowest in 60 years, prompting Pritzker to hail the season as “truly an amazing summer” in an October 2025 appearance on left-wing podcast Pod Save America.
However, September appeared to be a different story as 54 people were shot — seven of them fatally — over Labor Day weekend 2025 alone. The governor told NBC 5 Chicago at the time that “big cities have crime,” when pressed on the shootings.
A cashless bail law the governor signed in 2021 enabled the pretrial release of a man who went on to douse a woman in gasoline and set her on fire while onboard a train on the Chicago “L.”
Gorman’s fatal shooting has been compared to the 2024 murder of Laken Riley, 22, a University of Georgia nursing student who was killed while out for a run on campus, also by an illegal immigrant from Venezuela.
Pritzker, who is running for a third term in November, is a rumored candidate for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination. He is widely expected to win reelection to Illinois’ governor’s mansion for a second time with the nonpartisan Cook Political Report rating his race “Solid Democratic.”
The governor had a major political victory on Tuesday as his endorsed candidate, Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton, won the openDemocratic primary for Illinois’ November Senate election, despite being outspent by her opponent, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi.
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