Gun Tragedies Thwarted By Clear And Present Danger Reports: ISP

SPRINGFIELD, IL — State police officials are touting their efforts to keep guns out of the hands of those who are not allowed to have them.

Stronger gun safety laws and increased training for law enforcement and school staff about how to report people who pose a potential threat has helped avert numerous gun-related tragedies, according to Illinois State Police.

Earlier this year, ISP launched a new online portal to allow police, educators and medical professionals to easily submit "Clear and Present Danger" reports to alert state police that someone is a danger to themselves or others.

“We can stop potential tragedies when law enforcement, school administrators, and medical professionals file Clear and Present Danger reports,” ISP Director Brendan Kelly said in a statement.

Every day, state police review about 30 such reports and work with local police to ensure their subjects do not have access to guns.

During the first nine months of 2023, the ISP's Office of Firearms Safety received more than 10,000 reports from law enforcement, school and medical professionals.

Of those, more than 48 percent did not have a Firearm Owners Identification, or FOID, card or a pending application for them. According to ISP, the reports resulted in more than 4,200 revoked FOID cards or denied applications.

“Continued vigilance, identification of dangerous individuals, and [hands-on] work by state and local police can save lives," Kelly said.

State police provided nearly a dozen examples of situations in which a Clear and Present Danger report helped avert gun violence, including multiple cases involving a student threatening violence.

In one case, a school administrator reported that a student had threatened to kill his classmates after he was accused of cheating in class. He emailed family members about his desire to carry out a school shooting, and used a computer at school to research AR-style rifles.

Though he did not have a FOID card or an application at the time, state police said they can use the information to determine his eligibility in the future. Law enforcement also removed a gun from the house while the student received mental health treatment.

Rules governing state police's handling of the threat reports have changed since last year's mass shooting at the Highland Park 4th of July parade.

The Highland Park High School dropout accused of shooting more than 50 paradegoers, seven fatally, with a M&P 15 assault-style rifle had himself been the subject of a Clear and Present Danger report in September 2019.

Before state police issued him a FOID that allowed him to legally acquire an arsenal of five guns, including two semiautomatic rifles — both of which have been banned by assault weapon ban in the Protect Illinois Communities Act passed in response to the shooting — Highland Park police had submitted a report about the then-18-year-old alleged parade shooter threatening to "kill everyone."

Bob Crimo, the father of the accused shooter, is serving a 60-day jail sentence after he pleaded guilty this month to misdemeanor reckless conduct charges over his decision to sign off on his son's FOID application in December 2019. Prosecutors, who said he should have known that his son was a danger, agreed to cut the charges from a felony in exchange for his guilty plea.

Kelly said after the shooting — the deadliest by a single gunman in Illinois history — that there was not enough evidence to deny his application for a gun license.

"If you look at the report that was understandably submitted by the Highland Park Police Department in response to the information that they had," the ISP director said last year, "and then you look at the law with regards to clear and present danger, what the statute requires and what is that threshold, that did not meet that threshold."

In the wake of the shooting, state police filed an emergency rule amendment to allow ISP to retain the reports, even when an investigation determines that the subject does not pose a threat.

And "physical or verbal behavior, such as violent, suicidal, or assaultive threats, actions, or other behavior" is now included as a possible reason for state police to revoke FOID cards. That amendment was approved last November.

Some of the success stories released by state police — all of which are shorn of identifying details — make it sound as if clear and present danger reports may have stopped mass shootings.

In one case earlier this month, police in Central Illinois submitted a report about a man who had recently been fired and was making threats toward his old workplace.

"Police received information that this person’s mental health had been deteriorating over the course of the last several weeks and he simultaneously had been purchasing multiple firearms and ammunition during that time period," according to ISP. "After the Clear and Present Danger report was filed, and the individual’s FOID card revoked, police worked to locate the cache of firearms he had reportedly acquired."

And in another case from earlier this year described by state police, a person in Southern Illinois who was hospitalized in a psych ward over his suicidal ideations.

When a social worker notified police that he was trying to acquire a gun, state police were able to revoke his FOID card and contact the gun dealer he had been trying to buy it from.

"ISP’s investigation," according to state police, "revealed the individual had called the firearm dealer from the psychiatric ward to check on the status of the gun he had ordered."