ShotSpotter Pitches In To Help Cops Open Fire On A Teen Setting Off Fireworks

(Mis)Uses of Technology

from the can't-end-that-contract-soon-enough dept

Back in 2021, the Chicago Office of the Inspector General released a report on the PD’s ShotSpotter tech. The acoustic detection system was apparently mostly useless, no matter what ShotSpotter may have commented in response.

Residents of Chicago are paying nearly $11 million a year for this system. But it’s obvious they’re not getting much bang for their buck, so to speak. ShotSpotter (which has since rebranded to SoundThinking) claims its detection system is worth every penny blown on it, stating that it is “highly accurate” and “benefits communities battling gun violence.”

Plenty of cities that have spent money on this product say otherwise. So do lawsuit plaintiffs and other victims of civil rights abuses, who have claimed ShotSpotter will alter detection records to align with the narratives crafted by police officers following acts of police violence or wrongful arrests.

The Chicago OIG report disputes ShotSpotter’s claim that its tech “benefits communities battling gun violence.” It’s actually the opposite of that, according to the data gathered by the Inspector General.

OIG concluded from its analysis that CPD responses to ShotSpotter alerts can seldom be shown to lead to investigatory stops which might have investigative value and rarely produce evidence of a gun-related crime.

[…]

The CPD data examined by OIG does not support a conclusion that ShotSpotter is an effective tool in developing evidence of gun-related crime.

Despite this report (and a lawsuit against the city and its police department), Chicago is apparently still paying $11 million a year for a system that doesn’t appear to work.

No gun crime got stopped here, as Adam Schwartz reports for the EFF. However, it did give Chicago police officers the reasonable suspicion to go traipsing around the neighborhood with their guns at the ready, resulting in the following (thankfully not deadly) debacle.

On January 25, while responding to a ShotSpotter alert, a Chicago police officer opened fire on an unarmed “maybe 14 or 15” year old child in his backyard. Three officers approached the boy’s house, with one asking “What you doing bro, you good?” They heard a loud bang, later determined to be fireworks, and shot at the child. Fortunately, no physical injuries were recorded. In initial reports, police falsely claimed that they fired at a “man” who had fired on officers.

Lots of stuff going on here. Presumably, the ShotSpotter system was triggered by the fireworks but was unable to distinguish between the detonated fireworks and actual gunshots.

Second, the officers were unable to make this distinction either, as they immediately treated the percussive noise as shots fired at them and responded with actual gunshots.

Third, the PD then told local reporters officers had “fired shots at a person” who they only identified as “male.” The rest of the facts were withheld until the Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA) concluded its investigation and released the body cam video. In that video, an officer is heard informing dispatch that officers had just shot at a teenager. These facts were all known by the Chicago PD, but no one from the department bothered to call the Chicago Sun Times to get the headline referring to the shot-at person as a “man” corrected.

This was all cleared up by the COPA investigation. And, it appears the Chicago PD is taking this incident seriously. All three officers have been placed on administrative duty and are being investigated to see whether department policies were violated.

The bigger concern is obviously the tech that brought the officers there in the first place. It’s literally called “ShotSpotter” so every alert is obviously going to be treated as actual gunfire, even if it isn’t. This puts officers on edge and makes them more prone to react the way these officers did — something that could easily have resulted in the injury or killing of a minor doing nothing more than setting off fireworks.

The other good news is that Chicago’s contract with ShotSpotter will expire in September, which will hopefully head off further incidents like these. And, as Schwartz notes in his article for the EFF, it means the Chicago PD will stop spending millions a year for the dubious privilege of being worse at policing.

[The] 2021 [Inspector General’s] study in Chicago found that, in a period of 21 months, ShotSpotter resulted in police acting on dead-end reports over 40,000 times. Likewise, the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office concluded that ShotSpotter had “minimal return on investment” and only resulted in arrest for 1% of proven shootings, according to a recent CBS report.

So, that pretty shoots “better than doing nothing” arguments all to hell. It’s literally worse than doing nothing. The alternative — not using ShotSpotter — would be better. And that’s where the city is headed before the end of this year. Hopefully, more cities will take a closer look at this tech and realize spending this money on pretty much anything else is probably a better use of public funds.

Filed Under: chicago, chicago pd, gunshot detection
Companies: shotspotter, soundthinking