ABC7 Chicago is now streaming 24\/7. Click here to watch<\/a><\/p>\nIt was during a meeting 13 months ago where city officials disclosed that nine vendors had come forward to bid on the city’s call for a replacement to the controversial ShotSpotter technology, which Mayor Brandon Johnson famously referred to as “a walkie talkie on a stick.”<\/p>\n
To this date, no replacement has been selected, leading to impatience amongst many in the Chicago City Council who support its use.<\/p>\n
“Either we get the ball moving again, and we get a new gunshot detection system out there, or let’s just be honest with people and have the mayor say, ‘I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want it,'” said Public Safety Committee Chairman Ald. Brian Hopkins.<\/p>\n
Johnson has brushed off pressure to make a decision, pointing to the city’s violent crime data since the contract’s cancellation.<\/p>\n
“In every single neighborhood where that junk technology existed, violence has gone down, and there has been a faster response from law enforcement,” Johnson said.<\/p>\n
The mayor attributed those faster response times to a University of Chicago study that compared the six months prior to ShotSpotter’s cancellation with the six months after. What the study did not do was include responses to gunshot incidents.<\/p>\n
Appearing before the city council on Tuesday, the study’s author indicated that he never meant to imply that one thing had anything to do with the other.<\/p>\n
“A single before and after comparison cannot carry that weight. But what I can tell you is that the predicted catastrophe of slower response times and more death did not arrive,” said University of Chicago Professor Robert Vargas.<\/p>\n
But even as the mayor has indicated that his office supports finding a replacement, his allies in the city council loudly questioned the need for any gunshot detection technology at all on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
“If we are going to be investing millions of dollars in a technology, we have to have clarity on, what is it that we want this technology to do and if this technology is proven to do that,” said 33rd Ward Ald. Rosanna Rodr\u00edguez-S\u00e1nchez.<\/p>\n
Under the rules, the city’s Procurement Department has until next February to make a selection. Hopkins, who also chairs the public safety committee called on them to get it done within the next 90 days.<\/p>\n
Copyright \u00a9 2026 WLS-TV. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHICAGO (WLS) — The City of Chicago ended its contract with ShotSpotter nearly two years ago amidst criticism…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":856890,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5124],"tags":[349716,20174,960,5461,24969,5462,5464,5457,34845,5460,4222,340714,5386,1818,199917],"class_list":["post-856889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-chicago","tag-349716","tag-brandon-johnson","tag-chicago","tag-chicago-crime","tag-chicago-mayor","tag-chicago-news","tag-chicago-police","tag-chicago-shooting","tag-chicago-shootings","tag-chicago-violence","tag-gun-violence","tag-gunshot-detection","tag-il","tag-illinois","tag-shotspotter"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116724436036926230","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=856889"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856889\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/856890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=856889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=856889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=856889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}