Chicago voters want gunshot detection back. The wounded need someone to draw near

What happened

Chicago voters backed bringing back gunshot detection technology in a non-binding advisory referendum on Tuesday, WBEZ Chicago reported. The ballot asked whether the city should “restart the use of gunshot detection technology that informs first responders when gunshots are detected.” According to WBEZ, 72% said yes: 447,475 of the 617,413 votes cast. Mayor Brandon Johnson told the Sun-Times the result would not pressure him to deliver a replacement for ShotSpotter.

WBEZ reported that Johnson canceled the city’s ShotSpotter contract to keep a campaign promise, after a costly extension carried the system through the 2024 Democratic National Convention. He and his backers viewed the technology as costly and ineffective. They also saw it as a contributor to over-policing in Black and Brown communities. Since then, according to WBEZ, the last two city budgets set aside a combined $13.9 million for a replacement, and no contract has been signed.

Instead, WBEZ reported, Chief Procurement Officer Sharla Roberts skipped a City Council hearing and sent aldermen a letter announcing a pilot in six police districts: Wentworth, Calumet, Englewood, Deering, Ogden and Harrison. It will test several ideas, including more violence intervention. Drones and license plate recognition are also on the list. Johnson said any technology he supports has to be credible and effective and has to protect privacy. He pointed to what he called “historic reductions in violence” and said, “So I’ve put forth a pilot.”

According to WBEZ, Ald. Anthony Beale (9th) called the pilot a “mystery,” even to the police department. Ald. Matt O’Shea (19th) said Acting Supt. Fred Waller considers the technology “a valuable tool” that can shave life-saving minutes off response times. WBEZ noted that advisory referendums rarely lead to government action, and the article does not say how the pilot will be evaluated.

Our reflection

Under every yes vote is a sidewalk and a set of minutes: the time between a gunshot and a hand pressed on a wound. Families in Englewood and the other districts named in that letter know those minutes better than anyone at City Hall, and they have watched the money sit unspent.

It is easy to read this as a fight between a mayor and his council and pick a team. Harder to admit is what a sensor quietly offers the rest of us, a way to have the shooting handled without ever knowing the block. If my concern for a shot-up corner ends when I fill in a ballot oval, I have done what the priest did on the Jericho road, with better paperwork.

A lawyer asked Jesus who counted as his neighbor, and Jesus answered with a man left bleeding beside the road. Two religious men saw him and crossed to the other side. They had reasons. The Samaritan, from a people the listeners looked down on, came where the man was. He poured in his own oil and wine and paid the innkeeper out of his own pocket. Before he left, he promised to come back. The question Jesus pressed was who drew near. Then he handed it back: go and do likewise.

A microphone on a pole can hear a shot. It cannot know a name. Both camps in Chicago are pointing at something real. Speed matters when someone is bleeding, and so does whether a neighborhood trusts the people who arrive.

What changes a block over years is people who draw near before the shot. Violence interrupters and credible messengers, many of whom once lived the life they now talk young men out of, know which beef is heating up and which kid stopped coming to school. The pilot lists more violence intervention among its ideas. Through our Chicago hub, our JCVI work tries to reach a young person at first contact, before a record exists, and stay through re-entry. Nobody votes on that work. It still has to be funded and measured.

Whatever you think of ShotSpotter, people in those six districts deserve to know what is being tested on their streets and how it will be judged. When the results come in, they should be public. That is a fair ask of any mayor and any council.

So ask it this week. Call your alderperson and request the pilot’s evaluation plan in writing, and while you wait for an answer, pray for those six districts by name and for the people who already walk toward the gunfire.

But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him.

Luke 10:33

Source: WBEZ Chicago, “Most Chicago voters said they want ShotSpotter back, but that’s unlikely to sway Mayor Johnson”