Chicago alderman hope to see ShotSpotter restored to keep city streets safe

[October 05, 2024]  By Glenn Minnis | The Center Square contributor

(The Center Square) – With the residents of his 29th Ward jurisdiction in mind, Chicago Ald. Chris Taliaferro is keeping the faith when it comes to the future of the ShotSpotter gun detection system recently ordered shelved by Mayor Brandon Johnson.

Johnson stands firm behind his decision to veto the City Council’s recent vote to keep the service in place by bypassing his authority on the issue. Taliaferro said he and several fellow city lawmakers are now hoping to work with the administration in restoring the service in even greater form.

“Shotspotter has the capability of being integrated with other types of detection systems,” Taliaferro told The Center Square. “How about integrating it with video so that the instant gunfire goes off, the camera starts to instantly record? It could also detect whether there is the presence of a gun on someone's person or in their hand.”

As part of his rationale for ending the service that worked by sending an instant alert to Chicago Police Department anytime suspected gunfire was detected in one of the South or West Side neighborhoods where it was installed, Johnson joined other critics in arguing that it far too often led to over policing while actually doing little to reduce violent crime rates.

A former CPD sergeant, Taliaferro argued Johnson’s focus strikes him as being misplaced, adding that the administration would be wise to concentrate on all the benefits the technology provides.

“I'm already seeing reports of victims of gun violence lying on the street and there are no calls to 911,” he said. “I read a recent article that a police sergeant drove upon a young woman that had been shot lying on the sidewalk and had the sergeant not stumbled upon that scene, it’s no telling how long she would have laid there. ShotSpotter was in that location and would have been able to detect that there was gunfire. How long do we let this go on?”

Chicago police officers monitor protesters at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago
Greg Bishop | The Center Square

With his 29th ward including the Austin community that ranks among the city’s bloodiest neighborhoods, Taliaferro argues he knows ShotSpotter is capable of doing even more to help reduce crime rates because he’s watched it happen.

“That's how Mexico City went from one of the most dangerous cities in the world to now one of the safest with an over 80% decrease in violent crime, because they've integrated four different systems that help to identify not only whether it was a gun, but who did it,” he said. “We're stuck on ‘it didn't work, let's get rid of it.’ If anything, we need to put more resources. How about integrating it with video; how about integrating it with gun recognition capability. We've not explored ShotSpotter to its fullest.”

But with the Mayor now vowing to institute a public safety plan he argues will do even more to keep residents safe, Taliaferro is keeping an open mind in the name of keeping residents safe. In the meantime, he is hoping people will be more willing to call police when they see or hear something.

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