About a month ago I received a call from Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn as he prepared to write about a 13-year-old girl who was allegedly shot and killed by a gang member after he was ordered to open fire by his leader, an illegal alien who had been arrested 28 times, "Passing buck on immigration cost teen's life, Chicago Tribune, July 10, 2007. "How could this happen?" asked Zorn in regard to why the illegal had been allowed move freely through the streets of Chicago for many years. "Did someone drop the ball? Is it because of a staffing shortage? Or maybe nobody really cares?"

It could be a little of all three, I said, but I told Zorn (e-mail) that he would be remiss in not laying much of the blame for this tragedy at the feet of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley and his long-standing sanctuary city policy. Such policies, I said, breed contempt for the law and offer de facto recognition to people who have no use for the rules the rest of us are expected to live by. But, as you will see, even after a lengthy conversation with the retired head of the old INS' Chicago district, Zorn completely ignored the sanctuary element. Why? Let's allow Zorn, who at the beginning of his call to me admitted he didn't know what a sanctuary city is, to explain:

"I wasn't sure enough of the sanctuary city angle to hit it in this column, Dave...was unable to make the link...persuade myself that things would have been different in, say, DuPage (County) or Lake (County). You may like the column anyway."

No, I didn't like the column because Zorn let Daley off the hook. Fast forward to Saturday night, Aug. 4, when Jose Lachira Carranza, a 28-year-old illegal immigrant from Peru, allegedly lined up four young friends against the wall of a school building in Newark, N.J., also a sanctuary city, and shot each of them in the back of the head, killing three, "Gaps in legal system kept suspect in three killings on the streets, by Robert Schwaneberg and Brian Donohue," Star-Ledger, August 11, 2007. Check out this story's lead paragraphs:

He was in this country illegally. Ten months ago he was charged with assaulting bar patrons; last month he was indicted for sexually assaulting a young girl and threatening to kill her family.

But Jose Lachira Carranza was not in jail awaiting trial, or in detention as an illegal immigrant. He was free to roam the schoolyards of Newark, where authorities say he took part in the murder of three college-bound students and the shooting of a fourth last Saturday night.

Stealing Zorn's line, How could this happen?

According to a spokesman for Essex County Prosecutor Paula Dow, illegals are not reported to the feds until they are convicted and sentenced. To do otherwise would risk having the defendant immediately deported before he could be punished for the crime.

When people talk about "gaps" in our legal system, we all know that what they really mean is that many of these gaps were intentionally put in place to benefit certain special interest groups. In this case, we happen to be taking about spineless politicians who would sell their own mothers in order to stay in office, and employers who can't stand the idea of paying decent wages to American workers.

I'm not going to offer a timetable for when reporters and their editors finally are going to acknowledge the relationship between sanctuary cities and crimes illegal aliens commit against our citizens. But I would be willing to bet that it would be sooner than later if illegals living in cities like Newark and Chicago started murdering and raping journalists on a regular basis.