Chicago City Wire

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and the company that invented ShotSpotter, the gunshot detection technology the city has deployed since 2012, have agreed to a deal that keeps the technology functioning in the city through September, meaning that it will be in use for the Democratic National Convention in August.

Some community groups have branded use of the technology as racist since it’s deployed principally in Black and Latino communities on the South and West Sides. Defenders have praised ShotSpotter for saving lives in communities distrustful of the police and reticent to call 911 in an emergency.

Johnson announced last week that he was ending the contract with SoundThinking, Inc., the California-based company behind the technology.  There was speculation that the system would be shut down as early as this past weekend, but late Friday a deal was reached to extend it to September 22, with a two-month wind-down period after that.  

In a statement reacting to Johnson’s decision, Ralph Clark, CEO of SoundThinking, Inc., said that ShotSpotter “has led police to locate hundreds of gunshot wound victims where there was no corresponding call to 911. Those are victims who most likely would not have received aid—if not for ShotSpotter.”

Clark added that 82% of Chicagoans support the technology for getting help to victims more quickly.

A 2022 lawsuit filed by the Washington D.C. – based MacArthur Justice Center, with an amicus filed by three Chicago-based activist groups, including Lucy Parsons Labs, charges that the technology is both ineffective and unfairly targets Black and Hispanic communities.

“More than 90% of all ShotSpotter alerts turn up nothing,” a statement from MacArthur said when the lawsuit was announced. “Despite knowing the system is overwhelmingly and dangerously untrustworthy, the City of Chicago deliberately relies on a technology that provides no proven public safety benefit and, instead, enables discriminatory policing […]”

Adam Scott Wandt, a law enforcement technology expert with the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, told Chicago City Wire for an earlier story that ShotSpotter— now used in over 140 cities around the country— is a valuable tool but has its limitations, like any technology. 

“It’s a law enforcement technology that shouldn’t in and of itself be used as evidence,” Wandt said. “But it’s a very good tool for alerting police and other first responders so they can get to a scene more quickly, and possibly stopping the spread of additional violence.”

In a recent opinion piece, National Review’s Jeffrey Blehar called Johnson a hypocrite for keeping the technology around for the Democratic Convention.

“If Johnson genuinely believes ShotSpotter is a racist blight on the city, then he ought to do the morally correct thing and cancel it now instead of renewing it for a few months,” Blehar wrote in a February 14 piece. “But of course he knows (or at least deeply fears) that it will be a disaster, and an ill-timed one for the national party. So we in the city have been granted a temporary reprieve. But that won’t stop him from toying with the lives and well-being of Chicagoans for the sake of testing nonsensical progressive ideas that will get people killed; no, it will only delay the date.

Johnson ran for mayor promising to eliminate ShotSpotter.

Meanwhile, City Council weighed in on the mayor's decision to end the contract, with Ald. Anthony Napolitano (41), a former city policy officer, expressing support for the technology. 

"Statistics show that this tool works," Napolitano told WTTW. "We have less officers on the streets so we need more technology to step in." 

Since 2018, the city has spent $49 million on ShotSpotter, the Associated Press reported.