Chicago City Wire

Mayor Brandon Johnson has signed off to approve a $10 million payment to extend the ShotSpotter deal he once vowed to end.

“This expensive technology played a pivotal role in the police killing of 13-year-old Adam Toledo. That cannot happen again,” Johnson's campaign website stated. “Brandon Johnson will end the ShotSpotter contract and invest in new resources that go after illegal guns without physically stopping and frisking Chicagoans on the street.”

According to the Chicago Sun-Times, a spokesperson for Johnson later insisted his signature was mistakenly attached to the document that closed the deal authorizing the payment to cover a contract extension that former Mayor Lori Lightfoot originally approved several months earlier.

Lightfoot lost her bid for reelection in the Feb. 28 mayoral election to Johnson and candidate Paul Vallas. Then, Johnson defeated Vallas in the April 4 runoff.

Johnson spokesman Jason Lee told reporters the procurement office used an electronic signature device with Johnson’s signature that authorized the $10 million payment, adding “that’s not the procedure that we will have moving forward, but that’s what was done.”

Sound Thinking owns ShotSpotter, the technology company that detects gunfire and alerts police when shots are sounded. The newly signed contract document also bears the signatures of City Comptroller Reshma Soni and Chief Procurement Officer Aileen Velazquez.

“The mayor would not have been a rubber stamp and would have closely reviewed this,” Lee said, though he noted that Johnson may have been legally obligated and that failing to sign off could have prompted legal action. 

Use of the ShotSpotter system goes back to 2018. During what proved to be among her final days in office, Lightfoot quietly pushed the end date from Aug. 19 to Feb. 16 next year. 

Lee said the error frustrated Johnson, and has now sparked a full review of the city’s procurement procedures.