Chicago City Wire

After hours of debate that included wrangling over parliamentary procedures, Chicago City Council on Wednesday approved an order with a veto-proof 34-14 vote that gives Council control over the future of ShotSpotter, the gun detection technology whose contract Mayor Brandon Johnson cancelled in February.

Supporters of ShotSpotter fought back a move to re-refer the order, sponsored by Ald. David Moore (17th), back to committee arguing that it was merely a delaying tactic.

Moore said that the order gives Council the ability to vote over ShotSpotter’s tenure in the future with better data and requires Council to be notified in advance of any decision to remove funding. In addition, the technology could not be discontinued in any ward without a meeting of the Committee on Public Safety and approval by the full Council.

CPD Chief Larry Snelling | City of Chicago

“It just blows my mind,” Moore said. “You’re voting against having a voice for your constituents.”

At a press conference after the vote, Johnson said that Council’s action was meaningless since he, not council, has authority over the technology’s future in the city.

“This passage, whatever it was, has no bearing on my executive authority to cancel the ShotSpotter contract," Johnson said. “It doesn’t make any sense, frankly.”

ShotSpotter supporters argued that the technology not only saves lives by alerting first responders to gunshot victims, but it’s also an absolute necessity in some parts of the city where residents are reluctant to call 9-1-1.

“There was recently a mass shooting in my ward,” Alderwoman Monique Scott (24th) said during debate. “90 shots. Six Shooters. And not one person called the police. It’s [ShotSpotter] safe for the DNC, but not for my constituents.”

Scott's comments refer to Johnson's cancellation of ShotSpotter before announcing that he would extend the contract expiration date through the Democratic National Convention in August.

Chicago first embraced the technology in 2012, and has deployed in high crime areas of on the South and West Sides, areas with larger Black and Latino populations.

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

Replying to an email from City Wire, Freddy Martinez, spokesperson for Lucy Parsons, said that the lawsuit was ongoing.

“The city attempted to dismiss it, but we were able to keep it alive,” he wrote. “Right now, we are still in the process of serving discovery on the City but have no indication on when that process may end.”

Alderwoman Silvana Tabares (23rd) said during debate that opponents were only interested in using the money saved from cancelling ShotSpotter for “their own pet projects.”

The city has spent about $49 million on ShotSpotter since 2018.

Police Supt. Larry Snelling and former Supt. Eddie Johnson have both voiced support for ShotSpotter.

Statistics cited by the Sun-Times as being provided by Chicago Police show that police officers got a ShotSpotter alert alone nearly three times as often as when the gunshot detection alert was combined with a 9-1-1 call.

The disparity was particularly wide in the city’s most violent districts, the Sun-Times report said.

The Englewood police district had 17,775 ShotSpotter-alone alerts versus 5,719 combined 911/ShotSpotter notifications from Jan. 1, 2018, to March 31, 2024,” the Sun-Times reported. “The difference in the Calumet District on the Far South Side was 23,316 versus 8,865 and in Harrison on the West Side, 15,030 versus 6,040.”

ShotSpotter was developed by SoundThinking out of Fremont, California.