Chicago Felon Who Brought Loaded Gun to Police Station Gets Unreal Plea Deal

Nakia Smith isn’t exactly a household name, even in Chicago, but his criminal case has garnered quite a bit of attention in the local press thanks to former Education Secretary Arne Duncan going to bat for the felon charged with armed habitual criminal, unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon, and aggravated unlawful use of a weapon after he brought a loaded pistol to a Chicago police station. 

Smith, who was working as an anti-violence volunteer at the time of his arrest, claims that he was trying to turn in the pistol to police and should never have been charged. CWB Chicago, though, notes that many parts of Smith’s story don’t add up. 

Smith has said he brought the firearm to the Calumet District police station in March 2023 because he wanted police to take it off the street. Duncan, the former Obama administration education secretary who now leads the Chicago CRED anti-violence organization, has defended Smith and told the Chicago Sun-Times that charging him was a “travesty.”

The news reports, however, missed some key details that are available in public records.

The first version of events came the day after Smith’s arrest, when prosecutors working under former Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx presented their case in court. During the March 5, 2023, bail hearing, prosecutors said Smith walked into the Calumet District station at 727 East 111th Street at about 11:05 p.m. carrying a loaded .45-caliber handgun in his left jacket pocket.

Officers said Smith appeared intoxicated, smelled of alcohol, and became belligerent when he was unable to speak with a watch commander. Smith then indicated that officers “would have to take the firearm off him” and lowered his hands from the desk, putting them out of the officers’ view, prosecutors told Judge Maryam Ahmad. Officers surrounded Smith, detained him and recovered the handgun from his jacket.

CWB Chicago points out that Smith’s first attorney said nothing about her client trying to turn in the gun during his initial court appearance, and Smith himself allegedly told officers that he did not show up at the police station with the intent of handing in the pistol. In fact, he wanted it back. 

Despite the open and shut nature of this case, the Cook County state attorney’s office offered Smith a heckuva deal, and instead of going to trial today Smith instead pleaded guilty to a single count of aggravated unlawful use of a weapon and was sentenced to a single year behind bars. According to CWB Chicago, that amounts to time served since the state reduces sentences by 50 percent and gives credit to offenders for the time they spend behind bars or on electronic monitoring awaiting trial. 

This is not the first time that Smith was charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm, and the sentence he received in 2005 was even more lenient: probation and community service. Smith was also convicted of unlawful use of firearms by a felon and drug charges in 1998, but it’s unclear what punishment he received then or what felony offense turned him into a prohibited person. 

It’s my opinion that once someone has served their time their Second Amendment rights should be restored, but even if SCOTUS hasn’t embraced that standard it’s left the door open for non-violent felons to restore their right to keep and bear arms (or not even lose that right in the first place). If Smith was walking around in public with a loaded gun while he was intoxicated, I’m not sure the Second Amendment would protect him much even if he wasn’t barred from legally owning a firearm. 

Under the circumstances described by police, this should have been a slam dunk for the state attorney’s office. Prosecutors didn’t offer Smith a plea deal that amounts to a slap on the wrist because they wanted to send a message in support of a robust Second Amendment. They spared him from prison because progressive prosecutors in Chicago look for ways to spare offenders from prison, even as they enforce unconstitutional restrictions on lawful gun owners. 

Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.

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