After Mayor Brandon Johnson made good on his campaign promise to deactivate the controversial ShotSpotter gunfire-detection system, he wavered in the face of opposition and directed his administration to start shopping for police technologies.
A “request for information” issued by the city ultimately drew responses from 15 companies that sell a range of high-tech tools, gadgets and gizmos — from drones and GPS-equipped dart launchers to systems that aim to streamline crime reporting and evidence analysis.
Six of the firms that responded offer gunshot-detection technology, including SoundThinking, ShotSpotter’s parent company. The city has since started accepting bids on a new “gun violence detection” contract, although it’s unclear how many of those firms will apply.
The “request for proposal,” issued earlier this month, will be followed by similar bidding opportunities for contracts related to camera and drone technologies, according to a source familiar with the process. Meanwhile, CPD has quietly been testing technology designed to detect guns and prevent shootings.
Mayor Johnson has argued that millions of taxpayer dollars were wasted on ShotSpotter — a technology he likened to “a walkie-talkie on a pole” — but his administration is now barreling ahead with a process that could identify it as the best option on the market and further expand the Chicago Police Department’s surveillance capabilities.
A SoundThinking spokesperson wouldn’t say whether the company plans to submit a bid. Of the five other firms that previously pitched their detection systems, representatives for two companies said they’re interested in applying.
Garien Gatewood, Johnson’s deputy mayor for community safety, wouldn’t answer specific questions about the technologies the city is using or considering, citing the ongoing procurement process. But Gatewood insisted that future contracting is being informed by robust community engagement and research.
“The mayor is interested to find a technology that can help drive safety across the city,” he said. “This is also why we went through that RFI process because we needed to see what was out there. And we’re going through the RFP process to have a better sense and understanding on what can actually deliver, and help deliver, safety to the city of Chicago.”
Shot down
On Feb. 13, 2024, Johnson announced the city would cut the cord on ShotSpotter, setting off acrimonious City Council debates and frantic negotiations to keep the technology through the violent summer months. All told, ShotSpotter cost the city more than $53 million since 2018.
Johnson’s controversial decision, first reported by the Sun-Times, came after the technology was criticized in a series of scathing reports that called into question its efficacy.
The city’s Office of the Inspector General found the technology rarely led to investigatory stops or evidence of gun crimes. And a review by the Cook County state’s attorney’s office concluded that ShotSpotter was “an expensive tool” that had little effect on prosecuting gun cases.
In an act of defiance, City Council voted 33-14 in September to give ShotSpotter contracting authority to Police Supt. Larry Snelling, a champion of the technology. Johnson deemed the move “illegal,” and the system was shut down days later.
According to a document posted online Feb. 3, the city is now seeking technology to “enable CPD to detect instances of violent crime, in order to expedite response times, improve the likelihood of obtaining forensic evidence, and enable to rapid deployment of first aid for victims.”
The system should detect 97% of outdoor gunfire, and bidders must have the capacity to cover the city’s entire 235 square miles — far more than the 136 square miles ShotSpotter spanned. The posting appears to say the initial coverage area can be no more than 80 square miles.
The contract would stretch five years, with the possibility for extensions up to three more years. All proposals must be submitted by April 11.
An ‘ethical stance’
Tim Kelly, president and co-founder of Crime Gun Intelligence Technologies, said the firm will likely apply for the contract. The company previously submitted details about its FireFLY LTE technology as part of the RFI process, which was announced by Johnson in September.
The system was initially developed to protect troops overseas, Kelly said. It was repurposed for urban environments after the former ATF agent used it to investigate a spate of interstate shootings in 2015 near Fort Collins, Colorado.
“I don’t know if it really helped that much in the investigation,” Kelly said, but it prompted the development of the “transportable” system his company is now pushing.
He said it stands apart from the competition because its sensors can be used to address “clusters of shootings” and then be moved, instead of remaining in fixed posts.
“If you were to look at a lot of these activists out there, one of their underlying complaints with the legacy systems is that, hey, you’re targeting a community, typically Black or brown,” Kelly said. “And I’m like, well, maybe what this technology should be doing is targeting the shooters themselves, the trigger-pullers. And when that person is removed from that community, well maybe you can move the system, too.”
Flock Safety, headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, also responded to the RFI. Spokesperson Holly Beilin said the firm is now considering whether to bid for the contract.
Beilin said Flock’s Raven system connects to automated license plate readers, allowing cops to quickly link getaway cars to shootings. A built-in analytics tool then allows investigators to easily flag vehicles that have been used in multiple shooting incidents, a feature that Beilin said can help bolster arrests.
Like Kelly, Beilin highlighted the company’s ethical considerations.
“Any searches conducted in the Flock system are automatically saved in audit logs, and that audit log is indefinitely available so if a command staff or an oversight boards wants to understand what this technology is doing, that’s all saved in an audit report,” she said. “And I think that in a city like Chicago, it feels like that ethical stance is really important.”
Four other companies that offer gunshot-detection technology responded to the RFI:
- SoundThinking, the Fremont, California-based developer of ShotSpotter. “SoundThinking is very proud of the highly compliant solution that we presented in our response to the city’s RFI, including city data that validates the proven and unique value of the ShotSpotter solution,” a spokesperson said.
- Knightscope, a firm headquartered in Mountain View, California, markets the Automated Gunshot Detection system. Representatives didn’t respond to requests for comment.
- TechnoIdentity, a Houston-based tech company, sells the Triangula gunshot-detection system. Representatives also didn’t respond to inquiries.
- Johnson Controls, based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. A spokesperson declined to comment.
Renewed concerns over secrecy
Although Mayor Johnson was critical of ShotSpotter, the city has continued to expand its surveillance capabilities under his watch.
In August, the CTA announced it was testing a tool called ZeroEyes that uses artificial intelligence-equipped cameras to detect guns.
At the time, a spokesperson of the ACLU of Illinois raised concerns that the technology had been implemented on the transit system without any public discussion. Since then, ZeroEyes has also been piloted in a handful of police districts, sources said.
The company, based in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, was started by “a team of Navy SEALs and elite technologists” in response to the 2018 mass shooting at Marjorie Stonemason Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. ZeroEyes didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Freddy Martinez, director of Lucy Parsons Labs, a Chicago-based police accountability nonprofit, said he doesn’t see much “daylight” between Johnson’s stance on surveillance and that of his predecessor, Lori Lightfoot, a former federal prosecutor who also led the Chicago Police Board.
Martinez said the city’s lack of transparency about certain technologies underscores “why it’s so important that you have folks from the communities doing that kind of research and doing that kind of oversight.”