A 28-year-old Rockford man was sentenced Thursday to four years in prison followed by three years of supervised release for taking a semi-automatic weapon into a Springfield bar last May and then attempting to flee when approached by police. Joshua Mathies was on parole from the Illinois Department of Corrections for a previous gun offense when he was tasered and arrested. Mathies has been in the custody of the U.S. Marshal Service since his arrest on May 14, 2023.

The case against Mathies is part of Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN), a program bringing together all levels of law enforcement and the communities they serve to reduce violent crime and gun violence, and to make our neighborhoods safer for everyone. On May 26, 2021, the Department launched a violent crime reduction strategy strengthening PSN based on these core principles: fostering trust and legitimacy in our communities, supporting community-based organizations that help prevent violence from occurring in the first place, setting focused and strategic enforcement priorities, and measuring the results.