The Chicago City Council made a significant break with Mayor Brandon Johnson, voting to give the deciding vote over ShotSpotter technology to the city’s police superintendent.
The ordinance passed 33-14 in City Council chambers on Wednesday, with Johnson immediately vowing to veto the measure.
The measure passed during a special session of the City Council, and was aimed at taking the decision on whether to retain the controversial technology in place out of the mayor’s hands.
“The experts seem to think it’s a useful tool,” Ald. Bill Conway said. “Our constituents want that. Clearly a lot of my colleagues want to make sure we can keep it and find a way to do that.”
According to the measure, Supt. Larry Snelling would ultimately have the final say over whether to keep the technology in place, with a contract set to expire this month with SoundThinking, the company who maintains the network.
Johnson ran for mayor with getting rid of ShotSpotter as part of his platform, and has ramped up criticism of the technology this week, calling it “walkie-talkies on a stick.”
After the vote was held, Johnson promised to veto the ordinance, the first of his tenure as mayor, with his corporation counsel arguing that the ordinance violates the “Separation of Powers Act,” saying the legislative branch cannot compel the executive branch to execute a contract.
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“Today, obviously there was a spirited conversation around the legalities of procurement. I will have to veto it but I am committed to coming up with a collaborative solution to find systems that will actually work,” he said.
In all likelihood a legal battle will ensue over the measure after Johnson’s veto is made official.
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Johnson made headlines earlier this year when he announced the city would terminate its agreement with SoundThinking. While Johnson at the time said he was pursuing a short-term extension through the end of the Democratic National Convention, the company pushed back on those reports before a deal was ultimately reached.
ShotSpotter technology uses acoustic sensors to triangulate the sound of gunfire, with information relayed to police within 60 seconds, according to the company’s website.
Proponents of the technology say that it helps to speed up response times, which can be a matter of life and death for victims of gun violence. Those response times can also help police track down those who commit acts of violence using weapons.
While the company claims a 97% accuracy rate across all customers, but Chicago officials have argued that the technology’s alerts “rarely produce evidence of a gun-related crime, rarely give rise to investigatory stops, and even less frequently lead to the recovery of gun crime-related evidence,” according to a report from the Chicago Office of Inspector General.
Johnson called the technology “ineffective.”
“When it was brought to the city of Chicago, we were told it was going to reduce violence and increase arrests,” he said. “It’s done neither. It’s an ineffective tool.”
Chicago Ald. Raymond Lopez said this week that SoundThinking offered the city a discount to keep the technology running through 2025, and argued that “70% of the city” supports its use.
