Cook County court officials have revealed that 8% of participants in the chief judge’s electronic monitoring program are unaccounted for. This announcement, described by Chief Judge Charles Beach as part of a renewed commitment to transparency, follows the tragic death of a Chicago police officer and the serious injury of his partner last month, allegedly at the hands of a seven-time felon who had avoided the ankle monitor program.
Currently, there are 3,048 individuals on electronic monitoring, translating to an 8% absence rate, which means 244 people with pending criminal cases, likely felonies, are missing.
“Transparency is not optional. It is a core obligation of this office,” Beach stated in a Tuesday afternoon release. “The public has a right to know how this program operates, what the data shows and what we are doing every day to make it stronger.”
Beach emphasized that releasing this information is an act of accountability. His office announced that escape reports will be issued routinely, with the next report due on May 26.
This disclosure follows CWB Chicago’s repeated requests for electronic monitoring escape data from Beach’s office in the aftermath of the April 25 shooting of Officer John Bartholomew and the critical injury of his partner at Swedish Hospital. Beach’s office did not respond to these requests and did not disclose the charges faced by the program’s escapees, an omission that remained in Tuesday’s press release.
As of April 3, the electronic monitoring program included 21 individuals with pending murder charges, 13 facing attempted murder charges, 103 accused of criminal sexual assault, 78 charged with robbery, and 16 with pending carjacking charges. It is unclear how many of these individuals are missing.
Prosecutors claim Alphonso Talley, a seven-time felon and parole absconder with four pending felony cases, who escaped electronic monitoring in April, is responsible for the shooting of the officers. He allegedly hid a handgun used in the incident while being arrested earlier on a robbery charge.
The Office of the Chief Judge of the Circuit Court of Cook County took over responsibility for new electronic monitoring participants on April 1, 2025, following the transition from the Cook County Sheriff. Beach assumed the role of the county’s top judge on December 1 and ordered an immediate review of the electronic monitoring program amid scrutiny after another monitoring participant, Lawrence Reed, allegedly set a woman on fire on a Blue Line train weeks earlier.
Within two months of taking office, Beach implemented significant changes to the program, redefining a “major violation” as an unapproved absence of three hours or more, reduced from the previous 48 hours threshold.
However, court records indicate that Beach’s staff did not adhere to these new protocols in Talley’s case. Talley was missing for over 17 hours on March 8, and shortly after returning home, his ankle monitor went dead because he failed to charge it, according to court documents. Consequently, the system ceased to track him, as reported by the court’s pretrial services office.
Under the revised rules, Talley’s absence should have been reported to the judge within 24 hours. However, court files and a hearing transcript reveal that the issue was not presented to Judge John Lyke until after 1 p.m. on March 11, more than 53 hours after Talley returned home and his monitor went dead.
In January, Beach stated that the sheriff’s office had agreed to expedite electronic monitoring warrants. Nonetheless, a sheriff’s spokesperson later noted that the court never requested expedited service in Talley’s case. Beach’s Tuesday press release did not address the expedited warrant arrangement, which was highlighted in his January announcement of program changes.
Beach’s office reported that 4% of program participants were considered AWOL when new protocols were enacted on January 28, although the definition of AWOL was broader at that time.
