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Another role model who helped Jones quickly move beyond “Nobody is going to respect you” was FTO Sue Levensbaum. When she first came on, Jones saw how Levensbaum made the job seem not so hard.
“She would have us take every job,” Jones said. “If something came on the radio that we hadn’t done yet, she’d be like, ‘We’ll take it. We’ll take it.’ And we’d go write that paper.”
Jones has been formidable about passing that strong wom- an sense to her 6-year-old, Maeve and 3-year-old, Teagan. Even though Jones has advised her Maeve to be smart and follow in her father’s footsteps to the fire department, she keeps drawing pictures in school and writing that she wants to be the police.
“When I was growing up, that was not even heard of,” Jones detailed. “Girls really didn’t even say they wanted to be the po- lice or things to that extent. But now it’s like, they say it, and nobody bats an eye.”
Providing and protecting for her girls, her family and her neighbors has contributed to Jones wanting to run for state Senate. The run actually ignited when the previous Lodge 7 administration endorsed Martwick in 2020 despite his alleged ties to former Alderman John Arena who filed false complaints against members. She would come to FOP meetings and relate how questioning Martwick’s density initiative caused him to call them “racist cops.”
After hearing Jones demand that Martwick not even be al- lowed in the FOP Hall, let alone be allowed to use the name on
his mailers, the Lodge 7 political action committee suggested she would be a great candidate. They sat down independently with her husband and made sure he was good with the run.
With the way legislators like Martwick are dumping on the police, somebody had to do something. And in a community where many first responders live, that somebody is Jones.
When she started knocking on doors to collect signatures to petition to be a candidate, Jones heard a mouthful. Maybe not exactly the way she thinks, but she learned a long time ago on the job that listening and understanding are what people want.
“People are just sick of the same,” she reported. “These po- litical elitists expect us to be happy with the crumbs. It’s like you can’t have safe streets and low taxes. Or you can’t have good schools and low taxes. I feel like we can have it all. We can’t just be happy with the crumbs.”
So she is ready to represent. Represent the first responders in the district. Represent the Democrats. Represent the Republi- cans. Represent everybody in the neighborhood.
“These politicians have come out and told the police as a whole, ‘You don’t get a say in what happens here because you’re the police, so sit down and shut up,’” she emphasized. “No, I’m not going to let you make streets less safe for my daughters. I’m not going to let you make my schools more overcrowded. The only way we can move the needle is by challenging these politi- cians who are in it for themselves and not for the community.”
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