More than 70% of Chicagoans expressed in an advisory referendum Tuesday that they want to bring back gunshot detection technology to fight violent crime and speed up emergency response time to gunshot victims, but the vote is unlikely to pressure Mayor Brandon Johnson into reviving it.
It’s been three years since Johnson honored a campaign promise to progressive supporters by canceling the city’s contract with ShotSpotter, the technology he derisively called a “walkie-talkie on a stick.”
Johnson and his backers viewed the technology as costly, ineffective and a contributor to over-policing in Black and Brown communities where the majority of gun violence occurs.
Afterward, the City Council empowered then-Chicago Police Supt. Larry Snelling to sign a new contract with ShotSpotter, but Johnson declared the ordinance illegal — even after negotiating a costly extension to retain the technology through the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
Johnson then launched an open competition to replace ShotSpotter. SoundThinking, the company that owns ShotSpotter, was one of 15 firms responding to the “request-for-information” and one of nine companies responding to a follow-up “request-for-proposals.”
Nothing has happened since then — even though the last two city budgets set aside a combined $13.9 million for the replacement technology. Another $5 million is included in Johnson’s re-election budget.
City Council hearings have done nothing to pressure the mayor to deliver a replacement contract. Chief Procurement Officer Sharla Roberts was a no-show at the most recent hearing. She infuriated aldermen by sending a letter informing them that a “pilot” program was about to begin in six police districts: Wentworth; Calumet; Englewood; Deering; Ogden and Harrison.
The mystery program will test a variety of ideas, including more violence intervention, “drone-based situational awareness, license plate recognition and incident response systems for evidence preservation.”
Gunshot detection technology is only part of the pilot, officials said.
Against that backdrop, an advisory referendum appeared on Tuesday’s ballot: Should the City of Chicago restart the use of gunshot detection technology that informs first responders when gunshots are detected?”
The non-binding referendum garnered 72% support — 447,475 of the 617,413 votes cast — for replacing the gunshot detection technology that Johnson eliminated.
The City Council has a long history of using advisory referendum questions to crowd out more controversial ballot topics that could impact voter turnout. Most of the time, the results don’t translate into any governmental action.
City Council members leading the charge for a ShotSpotter replacement told the Sun-Times that, while they hope this time would be different, they don’t expect it will be.
“The mayor is choosing politics over the taxpayers’ wants and needs,” said retiring Ald. Marty Quinn (13th). “I don’t think the mayor’s pilot progam… is anything but a tactic to delay.”
Far South Side Ald. Anthony Beale (9th) agreed that Tuesday's vote “means absolutely nothing” and would not pressure Johnson to do what he has refused to do for three years.
“The administration is just trying to run the clock out until after the election,” Beale said. “The mayor is on the wrong side of what the people of Chicago are thinking and need.”
Beale said the six-district pilot remains a “mystery,” even to the Chicago Police Department and the Office of Emergency Management and Communications that's central to its implementation.
Johnson told the Sun-Times Wednesday that the referendum vote would not pressure him to deliver on his three-year-old promise to find a replacement for ShotSpotter.
“It’s also been three years where we’ve had historic reductions in violence,” he said. “I’ve always said from the very beginning that I support technology, but it has to be technology that is credible. It has to be technology that’s actually effective. It has to be technology that safeguards our community from anything that could be detrimental to our privacy. So I’ve put forth a pilot. That didn’t happen before… It was not transparent — the way I’m doing it.”
Ald. Gilbert Villegas (36th) said Johnson “can’t have it both ways” when it comes to the advisory questions approved by voters Tuesday.
“When you’re touting 80% approval for a millionaire’s tax and it’s 72% for gunshot technology, you can’t say that one’s more relevant than the other,” Villegas told the Sun–Times. “If you’re going to listen to the people, then listen to the people. People are saying that public safety is still an issue… And the people as well as CPD is saying that this type of technology assists them.”
If the vote doesn’t pressure Johnson to replace ShotSpotter, anti-administration Council members will turn up the political heat, Villegas said. “This is gonna give us the necessary tools to push back and remind him that three-quarters of the people of Chicago want this,” Villegas said.
Retiring Ald. Matt O’Shea (19th) said Snelling was a proponent of ShotSpotter and Acting Superintendent Fred Waller agrees “it’s a valuable tool” to alert police and shave potentially life-saving minutes from emergency response times.
“This whole game that’s been played with procurement — I believe the chief procurement officer needs to be called on the carpet. What the hell is going on? You’ve had this for two years. You no-showed at a meeting, then sent a letter that there’s gonna be a pilot that’s gonna start in two weeks, which would have been yesterday,” O’Shea said.
“The word, `transparency’ doesn’t exist here. But, the word `dishonesty’ does… If the mayor were going to show leadership skills, he would move on this and stop playing games. The overwhelming majority of Chicagoans spoke.”
Finance Chair Pat Dowell (3rd) said she was not surprised by the vote.
“The mayor is always talking about [how] he’s got a mandate from the residents of the city of Chicago. Well, clearly he’s got a mandate to restore the ShotSpotter detection and he should move post-haste,” she said.
When “nearly three out of four Chicagoans” support replacing ShotSpotter, downtown Ald. Brendan Reilly (42nd) said that should be “very clear guidance” for Johnson to “stop slow-rolling Chicagoans on deployment of life-saving technology.”
“He’s trying simply to survive a re-election bid and what we saw [Tuesday] night is that three out of four voters in Chicago disagree with him,” Reilly said.
“So the mayor has two choices: He can either get serious about this issue and put together a real plan that deploys real technology with real transparency around it, or he’s gonna face a backlash at the polls with these very same voters in just a few months at the end of February.”
