FILE - ShotSpotter equipment overlooks the intersection of South Stony Island Avenue and East 63rd Street in Chicago on Tuesday, Aug. 10, 2021. In more than 140 cities across the United States in 2023, ShotSpotter’s artificial intelligence algorithm and its intricate network of microphones evaluate hundreds of thousands of sounds a year to determine if they are gunfire, generating data now being used in criminal cases nationwide. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast, File)

America’s Murder City Mayor Brandon Johnson has done it again. He announced in recent days that the city would discontinue using ShotSpotter after the summer murder season – and the Democratic National Convention. No big deal, right? Giving police a chance to respond rapidly to the location of shots fired, especially full-auto strings of fire, and giving police a decent chance to catch the perps is, in Comrade Mayor Johnson’s eyes, just a waste of resources.

The only problem is that the contact with his city expires February 15th. And ShotSpotter has reportedly told Johnson’s administration that without a contract, they won’t be providing services after that date. No doubt they probably thought to themselves, “Good luck on that DNC thing you’ve got coming to town, Brandon.”

Good work Brandon Johnson. Nothing like burnishing your woke credentials by cancelling a tool police use to actually (on occasions at least) catch the perps who light up their neighborhoods, especially when they use full-auto bangsticks. While at the same time not buttoning down an agreement before opening your mouth.

For those unfamiliar with the system, ShotSpotter uses microphones and computers to identify and locate gunfire in a covered area. But the technology comes with a huge price tag. Many politicians are more than willing to spend taxpayer money upon to appear as though they are “doing something” about the gang violence their gun control and soft-on-crime policies have fostered in their communities.

And that is exactly what Chicago did. They’ve spent almost $50 million on the program just since 2018.  Yes, someone’s making big money. And it does allow cops, when available, to respond very quickly and increase the likelihood of identifying the perps.

And the fact that police sometimes respond to those Shot Spotter alerts and catch gang members is why Brandon Johnson wants to ditch this tool used by police. Johnson blames the system on the death of a young man (gang member?) named Adam Toledo, 13, who was carrying a gun late at 2:30 in the morning and didn’t obey police commands before or after running from the cops. When he suddenly turned towards the officer pursuing him, he got shot and didn’t survive.

FILE – This image from Chicago Police Department body cam video shows the moment before Chicago Police officer Eric Stillman fatally shot Adam Toledo, 13, on March 29, 2021, in Chicago. The gunshot detection system that Chicago has spent tens of millions of dollars on and has been touted as a critical component of the police department’s effort to combat gun violence rarely produces evidence of gun-related crime in the city, the city’s watchdog agency has concluded in a scathing report released on Tuesday, Aug. 24, 2021. The system that has come under scrutiny since March when it set in motion the events that led to the police shooting of Toledo. (Chicago Police Department via AP, File)

Here’s the video of the young scholar’s final moments on this mortal coil.

Here’s more on the real reason Brandon made the announcement, from the Sun-Times:

He insisted the technology is “unreliable and overly susceptible to human error,” adding that it “played a pivotal role” in the fatal police shooting of 13-year-old Adam Toledo in March 2021.

Many of those concerns were reiterated by critics of ShotSpotter, who frame it as a costly surveillance tool that has led to overpolicing in minority communities.

At the same time it proved itself useful enough that Johnson wanted to hang onto it until after the Summer Murder Season and the DNC convention.

The only problem is that ShotSpotter management hadn’t signed off on a contract extension beyond February 15th. From NBC Chicago:

The city of Chicago planned to keep using ShotSpotter technology through the end of summer even after opting not to renew their contract with the company, but that plan is facing obstacles.

Multiple sources tell NBC Chicago that Sound Thinking, the company that owns ShotSpotter, has rejected the city’s offer to extend its contract for six more months.

As a result, members of Chicago’s City Council tell NBC Chicago that the technology is expected to shut off at midnight Friday when the current contract ends.

The city, who has not responded to request for comment at this time, has informed members of the City Council that negotiations remain ongoing with the company.

Mayor Brandon Johnson announced Tuesday that the city would not extend its contract with the company, but had aimed to arrange a short-term extension through September, guaranteeing that the technology would remain in place through the summer and the Democratic National Convention.

Oh well. Da Mayor has about 150 Chicago cops dedicated to providing security for him and his family. The fact that fewer bad guys – oftentimes gang members – will get caught and prosecuted just means they will become more brazen. And as a result, more innocent people will find themselves the unintended backstops in America’s largest open-air shooting range known as Chicago.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

29 COMMENTS

  2. I’m happy to see a tool of the surveillance state get switched off and I wish there was a way for the taxpayers to get their wasted money back.

    His reasoning, that an array of microphones is somehow racially biased, is hysterical.

    The system − which uses acoustic sensors and machine algorithms to detect and locate gunfire incidents − has been widely criticized by watchdog and public safety groups for its ineffectiveness and racial bias. Since 2018, Chicago has spent $49 million on ShotSpotter.

    Loud pops in one neighborhood are not like the loud pops in another neighborhood. Even the Brady Campaign admits that.

    • I know this thing is not the solution its touted to be, never was. Its a lot more hype than useful. But the “racial bias” thing that’s just a stupid thing to say because it gives away their real motive, they should have just stuck with the “ineffectiveness” because that’s true.

    • I can’t speak to the utility or cost effectiveness of ShotSpotter but I like the idea of Cops responding to loud bangs. While a gun shot is several orders of magnitude more important than fireworks or some goof with no muffler and a truck prone to backfiring I want Cops to respond to those things as well for quality of life reasons.

      On a related note it was recently revealed that Ukraine has an acoustic sensor network that is used to detect and track Russian drones. Maybe a different company can develop a similar system that is cheaper to operate.

      • the shot spotter thing doesn’t work because of physics. At its basics its based on the concept that sound is always directional and always has specific frequencies and a false premise that firearms firing impulse noise is ‘unique’ (in reality it isn’t unique, just louder under some conditions).

        Basically; Although that works out in lab type testing for controlled conditions, in an urban environment with uncontrolled conditions a gun shot is nearly indistinguishable in frequency from the background sounds and similar or same frequency of other sounds found in an urban environment unless its very close. For example, the sound of a metal pallet being dropped on a concrete surface at a ware house loading dock 1/2 miles away can produce the same frequency range of sounds that’s present in 9mm pistol weapons fire at the same distance at the same location – its just that the amplitude of the 9mm fire sound would be stronger. The sounds of different types of bullets being fired varies in frequency so the filtering has to be wider which also lets in sound of the same frequencies from sources other than weapons fire which results in false detection’s. Plus in urban environments due to the many objects and buildings etc… buildings there is a ‘doppler shift’ effect that can obscure the true direction of a sound and the timing of that arriving at a shot spotter and there is a muting and absorption effect for the sound – this combined together can also cause a frequency shift in the sound causing it to not be detected by shot spotter because it falls outside its filtering range thus you have a lot that’s missed in the detection – which is why they have had to ‘falsify’ a lot of the so called ‘evidence’ from shot spotter so they could conjecture to fill in the blanks. Then there is its ‘impulse noise’ detection – although ‘impulse noise’ of weapons fire may sound loud and maybe even prolonged to the human ear that’s because of the way the human brain works, its not the same in electronic filtering of shot spotter where basically the impulse noise has to hit a certain peak and then its captured and that’s it – this can lead to false or unidentified detection’s in an urban environment when combined with the other effects I’ve mentioned. And sure, it gets some of them right sometimes but over all those are under unique conditions that did not ‘corrupt’ the sound of weapons fire basically because, in most cases, the weapons fire was very close to or in a spot the shot spotter system could ‘triangulate’ within the pattern of its directional sensors.

        So overall its a useless system in an urban environment. Its the physics for the sound energy in such an urban environment.

        “the Ukraine has an acoustic sensor network that is used to detect and track Russian drones” – its different because the sound frequency ranges of the drones is so unique the system filtering can be tuned more narrowly which filters out most area or urban sound effects and it can be amplified more because of that.

    • Let’s be real, here – The only reason it was dropped is because they didn’t want to pay for it…

    • But corrupt blue line armband wearers and goose stompers cant stand it when even one cent of funding to the poo poo gets cut back.

  3. There is a surefire way to stop all the killing in Chicago … but the commies would say it’s “waycist.”

  4. ShotSpotter is useless and they have been caught doctoring evidence at the request of Law Enforcement agencies several times.

  5. Alright, the mayor is an abortion gone wrong – but in fairness, I’ve watched and read articles about how crappy Shot Spotter is. False alarms, fail to alarm, inaccurate reports of the location of the shots. Millions of dollars spent on unreliable BS equipment and shoddy service from the manufacturer. Add to that the fact that I don’t much like the police state surveilling my butt 24/7 – maybe the mayor is doing the right thing for all the wrong reasons.

    • How many police officers can be hired, or better trained for $8M/year? How many more people that back them up could be hired or trained? Second City Cop talked lots about the idea they were horribly short on evidence techs and a lot of cases fell through the cracks over it.

  8. The truth is that Cook County was never going to put a serious prosecution effort on ShotSpotter cases.

  9. Even if ShotSpotter was absolutely reliable and perfect: how often would cops actually arrive on scene in time to see a suspect with gun in hand still shooting? Answer: pretty much never. That alone decreases the value of ShotSpotter to almost zero.

    Rather than spending $50 million on such a system, imagine what other ways Chicago could have invested that money in policing of some flavor that would have actually been much more effective.

  10. Let’s try Constitutional carry in Illinois. The bad guys are already carrying. Let’s level the playing field for the good guys.

      • Untrue. There definitely are big differences from neighborhood to neighborhood. I used to live there in the city (not the burbs) and have first-hand experience. In fact I rode a bicycle all over the city and know all of the baddest areas. I experienced two attempted bike-jackings in the 10+ years I lived there as well as other brushes with the criminal element.

        • So, you’re saying shot-spotter didn’t alert the popo to you being almost bike jacked? Were any firearms discharged while you ALMOST got jacked? How about while you blowing, I mean brushing up against the criminals element?

          I

  12. Raised adjoining South Central, they’re not worried about cops, other gangsters or laws.

    They on the other hand do learn manners from the far side of a Private Citizens large .45 handgun. Draw on the criminals first…collect all the phones, keys, weapons and clothing down a storm drain and let them go in saggy underpants. Pistol whipping and aggression may be required at first. What are they going to do, call the cops? Nope…

Comments are closed.