The City Council again rebuked Mayor Brandon Johnson’s plan to rid Chicago of ShotSpotter Wednesday, voting to keep the gunshot detection technology around just days before it was set to go offline.
Aldermen passed in a 33-to-14 vote an ordinance supporters say would compel police Superintendent Larry Snelling to reach a contract to continue using the tool.
However, Johnson appears poised to nonetheless move ahead with his plan to boot the technology from the city. He has previously sidestepped similar City Council decisions by arguing that only the mayor, and not the council, has power over the city’s contracts.
“This is not an ordinance to keep ShotSpotter,” the mayor insisted to aldermen during debate, nodding to his broad contract authority.
After the meeting, city Corporation Counsel Mary Richardson-Lowry joined the mayor at a news conference, where she said the ordinance violates the separation of powers in city government because it would constitute the legislative branch forcing the executive branch to take action. Johnson will therefore veto it, Richardson-Lowry said.
The mayor said he will continue to seek ways to make residents safer, including considering gunshot detection technology. “The technology that exists right now … are people still afraid? Yes,” Johnson said when asked whether Chicagoans will feel anxious that ShotSpotter is being removed.
Johnson’s council opponents meanwhile talked Wednesday about filing a lawsuit to keep the system in place.
And at a City Hall news conference Wednesday morning, supporters of the sensors laid the groundwork to blame him for gunshot deaths that follow ShotSpotter’s termination.
“If certain people are allowed to make certain decisions without certain common sense, then all I can say is, there will be blood,” said street pastor Donovan Price, known for working with gun violence victims.
The mayor has cited expert reports to argue the technology does not work well enough to justify its cost. On Monday, he joked about ShotSpotter, describing the tool as little more than a “walkie-talkie on a pole,” and arguing the attempts to continue its use in Chicago were being “pushed by corporate interests.”
But the City Council has fought hard to keep the sensors — which Snelling has praised as an important aid for police — in use. Aldermen passed with a veto-proof majority in May a measure to give themselves control over ShotSpotter’s future, but Johnson flatly rejected the vote by arguing the City Council does not have power over the city’s contracts.
That decision could ultimately pit aldermen against the mayor in court. Ald. Brian Hopkins, 2nd, said Wednesday the coalition of aldermen backing the technology is willing to sue to enforce the ordinance.
“If we wind up in front of a judge, we have a very strong case to make, and ultimately we will prevail,” Hopkins said. “But the easy course of action is for the mayor to do the right thing and renew the ShotSpotter contract.”
Richardson-Lowry said she was hopeful the administration could meet with the aldermen to discuss their differences and forestall a court fight.
The no-holds-barred effort to keep ShotSpotter supported by many aldermen and backed by the company behind the controversial technology, SoundThinking, included yet another contentious debate Wednesday. Most aldermen implored Johnson to keep it, even as many acknowledged the ordinance’s dubious legal footing.
“We should support this technology until we find a replacement. It’s just a tool,” said Finance Committee Chair Ald. Pat Dowell, 3rd. “I feel so strongly about this,”
“To eliminate it?” Ald. Anthony Napolitano, 41st, said. “You’re going to have to wear that.”
Even if Johnson ignores the City Council’s vote, the effort to retain ShotSpotter could continue. Ald. Bill Conway, 34th, said there are a “multiple of other ways to compel” Johnson to keep the technology, including by forcing the issue during the city’s upcoming 2025 budget process.
But the clock is ticking. ShotSpotter is set to shut down Sunday at midnight after Johnson agreed in February to a final extension with the company to keep it running through the summer, according to SoundThinking Vice President Gary Bunyard.
The company and city have not been in contact to discuss how the technology will be decommissioned, Bunyard said last week. The company will be responsible for the cost of taking down the over 2,000 acoustic sensors that underlie the technology, he added.
Richardson-Lowry said city officials have spoken to SoundThinking representatives about shutting down the system.
During the council debate Wednesday, other aldermen shared concerns that nothing sufficient will replace ShotSpotter.
Standing alongside 15 other aldermen at the Wednesday morning news conference, Ald. Raymond Lopez, 15th, said the technology is only about “saving lives.”
“How can Brandon Johnson … put a price tag on saving lives?” the Southwest Side alderman said.
That cost could be lowered, as SoundThinking sent a letter to the Johnson administration offering to cut the $10 million-per-year fee nearly in half if they agree to keep using it through 2025.
ShotSpotter — which uses acoustic sensors mounted on light poles, mostly on the South and West sides, to quickly alert police about the location of suspected gunfire — has been in activists’ crosshairs for years. It gained notoriety in 2021 after a gunshot alert from a street in Little Village sent responding police running after 13-year-old Adam Toledo. An officer fatally shot him during the chase.
The technology also faced harsh criticism in a 2021 report issued by the city’s Office of Inspector General that found it rarely leads to evidence of crimes, investigatory steps and gun recoveries, while tainting officers’ interactions with residents of neighborhoods most affected by gun violence. Separately, the MacArthur Justice Center is suing the city over its use of the tool, which it called “inaccurate, expensive and dangerous” in another 2021 study.
The 2021 inspector general report called for more data, as did the ordinance passed by the City Council in May. Recent data collected by the Police Department and publicized by ShotSpotter determined police respond 2.5 minutes faster to gunshot reports when an alert is made.
Through August this year, police have rendered aid to 143 gunshot victims after ShotSpotter alerts, including seven people who were treated despite no corresponding 911 call being made, according to the CPD data.
jsheridan@chicagotribune.com
