Springfield, IL (CAPITOL CITY NOW) – The shooting death of a Chicago police officer Saturday posed the latest opportunity for Republicans to attack the Safe-T Act.

“The reality of the Safe-T Act is stark,” House Minority Leader Tony McCombie (pictured, left) (R-Savanna) said during an online news conference Wednesday. “Individuals with extensive criminal histories or active charges are being released and committing crimes, serious crimes, in their communities.

“Preventable harm is unacceptable, and this is not an isolated incident.”

“We need better laws. We need better rules,” Senate Minority Leader John Curran (pictured, right) (R-Downers Grove) said during the same news conference. “This decision never should have been in front of this judge. It should have been already a mandatory hold. That record, that extensive record, should not be eligible.”

“The fundamentals of the Safe-T Act allow a judge to make the decision,” Gov. JB Pritzker said around the same time Wednesday, calling the judge’s discretion “one of the great things about the Safe-T Act.”

As for the case of Alphanso Talley, the man accused of killing Officer John Bartholomew, Pritzker said, “As you’ve seen, in most of the cases where Republicans have complained about the Safe-T Act, it’s actually been a bad decision by a judge – or no hearing at all, because the prosecutor didn’t bring it to the judge – a judge can make this decision, a judge should have made the decision, to keep that person in jail.”

Talley had been placed on electronic monitoring.