Gino Betts to seek 5th Subcircuit vacancy

Attorney Gino Betts has announced plans to seek a 5th Subcircuit vacancy in the 2018 primary. His supporters have set up a campaign website touting his candidacy. That's a link to the site in the preceding sentence; a link has also been added to the blog Sidebar.

According to ARDC, Betts has been licensed as an attorney in Illinois since 2009. Betts' campaign biography states that he now works for Chicago's "police oversight agency," presumably the Independent Police Review Authority, although a Facebook page indicates he is employed by the new Civilian Office of Police Accountability (which is scheduled to formally start operations in mid-September). Some uncertainty in this regard is understandable, during this time of transition.

Betts' campaign biography is far more certain about his background before becoming involved in police accountability matters. An excerpt:

I grew up in Chicago on a block where no one came outside. We stayed indoors to insulate ourselves from the drugs and crime outside the front door. Unfortunately, that did not work. Inside the house, I had family addicted to crack cocaine. In my young mind, I thought if we just got the drugs off the street, then the crime would stop too. So, after graduating from Whitney M. Young Magnet High School and completing undergraduate and law degrees, I became a prosecutor.​

For years, I worked to get drugs, guns and murderers off our streets. But working in court every day, it seemed that the crime was largely a symptom of an underlying epidemic: poverty. Most of the defendants that came into my courtroom were poor, black, drug addicted and/or mentally ill, just like folks in my family. These conditions inspired me to attack this public health issue from another direction. So, I quit my job as a prosecutor to join Cook County’s Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management....

According to his campaign biography, Betts also serves on the Auxiliary Board of Christ the King Jesuit Preparatory School and as a Director of the Civic Leadership Board of the Constitutional Rights Foundation of Chicago. The campaign biography also notes that Betts has served as "associate board president" of Just the Beginning - A Pipeline Organization.