In the weeks right after the mass shooting at the Highland Park Independence Day parade last year, a suburban man allegedly told a family member to hide his handguns, saying he was concerned he would hurt himself or someone else. A doctor worried his patient would take his own life if he was released from medical care to a home where weapons were present. Another man called 911, apparently intoxicated, and said he was on his way to kill his wife.
In response to all three cases, records show, police in Cook County suburbs utilized a tool that spiked in use after the Highland Park tragedy: the firearms restraining order, which is intended to take weapons away from people whom a judge deems threatening to themselves or others.
The Tribune found that FROs, which come from Illinois’ red-flag law, were used far more frequently after Highland Park, in Cook County and beyond. Authorities attributed the surge to increased public awareness of the law.
Cook County is no exception to the upward trend. The Tribune last month requested data from circuit court officials that would show how many FRO petitions had been filed countywide since the beginning of 2022.
Court officials turned over some of that information last week, though it does not paint a complete picture of the FRO process in Cook County. Illinois State Police reported slightly more FROs during the same time period. If a Cook County petition was filed as part of a mental health proceeding, it could be sealed away from public view, which might account for the discrepancy.
And if a judge denies a FRO petition, all the related court records are, by law, supposed to be expunged — though the records make it clear that does not always happen.
Even so, the available documents indicate FROs were being requested more frequently in Cook County after the Highland Park shooting. That corresponds with statewide numbers provided by Illinois State Police, which showed the rate of FRO use nearly tripled in the months just after the shooting, based on a monthly average.
And perhaps more importantly, the Cook County records provide some insight about who petitions for the restraining orders and in what fashion.
FROs can be filed by either a police officer or certain civilians who are close to the subject. Most of the available Cook County records feature petitions filed by police in the suburbs. Chicago police were involved in only a few of the petitions made available, two of which were filed before the parade shooting.
One of those involved a man who was arrested for the fatal shooting of 8-year-old Melissa Ortega. Police learned after the arrest that he had bought two guns besides the one he allegedly had used in the shooting; when they spoke to a relative of his, she said she did not want any firearms in the home. Police filed for a FRO, and a judge signed off, including a search warrant ordering the guns to be seized.
In some cases, FRO petitions were used alongside another measure that grew in popularity after Highland Park: The clear and present danger report, which alerts state police that someone might be too dangerous to have a gun license.
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Only a handful of the publicly available Cook County FRO petitions were filed by a civilian close to the subject instead of a police officer, and many of those petitions were denied.
By law, if a judge rejects a FRO, the record of the proceedings is supposed to be immediately expunged. But that is not always happening in Cook County: The Tribune was able to access records for multiple FRO petitions that had been denied. A spokesperson for the Cook County Circuit Court clerk’s office said they had not received court orders to expunge those records.
The rejected petitions can offer insight into why a judge might decline an FRO. Two such petitions did not seem to include any specific written allegations about why the person’s guns should be taken away.
One north suburban petition requested an FRO against a juvenile; as a minor, however, he would not have been able to legally own guns in the first place, so an FRO might have been moot. That petition was also rejected.
But most of the publicly available petitions were granted, whether for an initial two-week emergency period or longer.
The most recent available petition was filed at the end of June by a northwest suburban police officer. The subject had been expressing suicidal and homicidal thoughts to his family members for a long time, the petition states. He agreed to go to the hospital for a mental health evaluation, and when police searched his home, they found a huge array of weapons, according to the petition: knives, throwing stars, batons, more than 450 rounds of ammunition. And, out in the open in his bedroom, eight unsecured guns.
