Maria Roque was just 34 years old when she was shot and killedon the steps outside her West Side Chicago home, in front of her 8-year-old daughter.
Her daughter and her 14-year-old son both witnessed Roque take her last breath.
In the weeks before she was killed, Roque repeatedly took all steps domestic violence victims are told to take. She got a protection order against her former boyfriend, Kenneth Brown. She also repeatedly went to the Chicago Police Department for help. She filed one police report after another and never gave up.
But the system failed her.
I don’t want to come off as callous or victim blaming, this is nobody’s fault but the murderer and the cops for their refusal to act. However, I would like to take this opportunity to address an issue that is closely related to this one, since it is related.
Gun laws did fuck all to stop this. Chicago has some of the toughest gun laws in the country, and yet this Chicago resident presumably with an IL ID (which would bar him from purchasing firearms out of state), a state police issued FOID card, a mandatory safety course complete with signed affidavit from the instructor, and was approved for a CFP, and since gun sales are banned in the city drove to the suburbs to buy one, still was able to do all that and it didn’t prevent him from killing her.
Of course that is assuming he didn’t just get one from 600 Breezy or someone, BDs don’t check FOIDs.
And in order to protect herself against him if she so chooses, since the police obviously fail and the courts clearly take time, time she ended up not having, she would have to do all the same things, she can’t just stroll by O Block and pick one up illegally, if she uses it in defense she’d be fucked, she has to obey the laws, the murderer however can break other laws in service of the murder, “in for a penny in for a pound.” Not only did Chicago’s “common sense” gun laws do nothing to stop this, they could well have actually prevented her from obtaining a gun legally in the time it takes him to get one illegally, had she been so inclined.
Of course the real failings here are on the police, but every other comment has touched on that, I don’t feel the need to jump in the pile. Again, in conclusion, I do not blame this woman who if given the option may not have even wanted to have a gun to protect herself from this man, however clearly he was able to get one and I think it’d be better if victims had an easier time getting them than their assailants. In this case that would mean actually charging him with the crimes he’s committed to block his legal access before he murders her, and make legal access less hard for victims like her because we can’t actually stop him from getting one illegally.