Chicago aldermen, business leaders pledge $2.5 million to revive ShotSpotter gunshot detection system

CHICAGO (CBS) — A group of Chicago aldermen is continuing to push to revive the city’s ShotSpotter gunshot detection technology, two weeks after the system was taken offline.

Alds. David Moore (17th), Stephanie Coleman (16th), Peter Chico (10th) and other aldermen are joining a handful of business leaders, clergy, and others to urge Mayor Brandon Johnson to reactivate ShotSpotter, which uses acoustic sensors throughout the city to pick up the sound of gunfire to dispatch officers to the location of shootings.

Johnson and the City Council have been fighting for months over the fate of ShotSpotter. The mayor campaigned on a promise to shut down ShotSpotter, which he did last month.

Moore said he and several other aldermen worked with the business community to raise $2.5 million in private funding to help pay the annual cost of ShotSpotter, which has amounted to more than $50 million since it first went into place in 2018.

City Council supporters of ShotSpotter want to keep the system in place until a permanent replacement can be found. While the Johnson administration has launched a process to find potential replacements for ShotSpotter, Moore said that process could take more than a year, and the city can’t afford to wait that long.

“We’re always asking the business community to step up, and we thank them for stepping up to offer $2.5 million towards this effort to keep ShotSpotter in place until this administration has something to replace it,” Moore said.

Eric Smith, vice chair of BMO Harris Bank and co-chair of a public safety task force at the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago – a nonprofit organization of business executives – said business leaders worry about lives that could be lost without ShotSpotter or another gunshot detection system in place.

“We are committed to combating the crisis of crime here in Chicago, and we will do our part to ensure that we raise private dollars in securing $2.5 million so that we can take the cost of this issue off the table, and recognize that we cannot put a pricetag on saving innocent lives,” Smith said.

Critics of ShotSpotter have said the system fails result in a large number of arrests, prosecutions, or even evidence of a crime. But supporters have said it saves lives by alerting police to gunfire faster than 911 calls.

The most recent data from the first eight months of this year showed that ShotSpotter alerts produced police response times that were on average about three minutes faster than 911 calls alone.

“We’re here today because people are dying in neighborhoods that were once served by ShotSpotter,” Moore said Tuesday morning at City Hall.

Moore cited a handful of shootings in recent weeks in which police weren’t notified of the gunfire for an hour or more afterward, including the shooting death of 19-year-old Sierra Evans, who was found dead in an alley on the Southeast Side on Sept. 28. Moore said Evans laid in the alley for more than 9 hours before someone called 911.

“If ShotSpotter had been alerting first responders, they would have been notified of the precise location of the shooting event within 60 seconds,” Moore said. “We don’t understand why the administration’s willing to have such carnage on their conscience.”

Rev. Michael Pfleger said relying on 911 calls alone isn’t as helpful in sending police to the location of a shooting as ShotSpotter, because someone simply hearing gunfire won’t necessarily know exactly where the shots were fired.

“Many people are discouraged from calling in, because they can’t tell you exactly where it happened. Until we have something better, let’s put something in place that can save lives and that can alert police when they’re not being told by anybody else where something took place,” he said.

Asked if the Johnson administration would accept the $2.5 million being offered to help pay to keep ShotSpotter in place for now, Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Garien Gatewood “this is not how contracts are negotiated.”

“Negotiating contracts in the public sphere is just not the way that the city operates. It’s just not the way contracts operate. So if folks are interested in working together, we’ve always offered the olive branch to work with that alderman and various others. We’re happy to work together to continue to look for solutions, because that’s ultimately what we’re sent here to do,” Gatewood said.

Last week, the City Council voted 33-14 to approve an ordinance that would give Chicago Police Department Supt. Larry Snelling the power to renew the city’s ShotSpotter contract.

However, Johnson has said he will veto the ordinance, arguing it is illegal.

“The mayor referenced the veto because the thing that passed is in violation of the Separation of Powers Act,” Chicago Corporation Counsel Mary Richardson-Lowry explained. “The legislative branch cannot compel the executive branch to act.”

Moore claimed the City Council has the votes to override Johnson’s expected veto.

“Due to its ability to save lives, the majority of the City Council and the public overwhelmingly – it’s the people we serve – overwhelmingly support gunshot detection technology like ShotSpotter, because it speeds up times and increases the likelihood that gunshot victims will survive.”

The ShotSpotter system was taken offline on Sept. 24, but Johnson has said he is committed to other measures that would advance public safety.

“We’re going to find a pathway forward. We’re going to find a technology that actually works. And we’re going to keep this in mind—we’re going to invest in people,” Johnson said last month, “because the fact that those devices are in those communities, it’s an admittance that those communities don’t have everything that they need.”

The mayor called for focusing on measures that he said “actually work,” such as hiring more police detectives and sending behavioral health care workers to some 911 calls.

“We’re committed to technology, but it has to be technology that works. Look, cities all over America are canceling technology. Houston—this is a red state; this is not just blue states, you know, more moderate to conservative leaders—San Antonio, Seattle, New Orleans—they’re canceling it because it has proven to be ineffective. When this was brought before the people of Chicago, this is what they were told—that it would reduce violence and it would lead to more arrests. It’s done neither.”

Johnson’s office is searching for an alternative gunfire detection system, and is accepting recommendations from potential suppliers. The mayor said the goal is to explore better options and save more lives. 

Gatewood said a “request for information” (RFI) was issued in September to gather recommendations on reliable alternatives to the technology through Nov. 1.

“We have an opportunity to see what technology is across the sphere so we can get more technology into the city to get the results that we’re looking for,” Gatewood said Tuesday.

Gatewood defended the decision to end the use of ShotSpotter before an alternative gunshot detection system is in place, saying “we didn’t want to be pigeon-holed to one form of technology.”

“We needed to see what was available out here throughout the city, throughout the country actually, that can come and serve folks in the city,” he said. 

While the city is seeking out potential long-term replacements for ShotSpotter, Gatewood said officials are looking into potential pilot programs to test other gunshot detection systems.

Meantime, City Council supporters of ShotSpotter have arranged for a special meeting on Wednesday to vote on an ordinance that would require the city’s Office of Public Safety Administration to work with Snelling and the city’s Law Department to negotiate a contract extension, renewal, or new contract to keep acoustic gunshot detection technology in place for now. The ordinance would require the contract to last for a term of at least two years, and to be presented to the City Council for approval within 60 days.