Mayor Brandon Johnson is debuting a new gunshot detection system to replace ShotSpotter in some of the neighborhoods that see the most shootings, his administration told aldermen Tuesday.
In a letter to Ald. Emma Mitts, chair of the Contracting Oversight Committee, Chief Procurement Officer Sharla Roberts informed her “the city is preparing to launch pilot programs to evaluate a range of violence interruption and public safety technologies, including gunshot detection systems.” The system will be made of “multiple programs,” Johnson press secretary Allison Novelo said, though she did not provide names of the vendors.
It was also not clear how much the pilot would cost, although Johnson a year ago added a $5 million line item in the city budget for a “gunshot detection system.” The mayor fulfilled a campaign promise by getting rid of ShotSpotter in 2024, then announced he would seek a replacement gunshot detection system amid pushback from aldermen and police officials who praised the technology.
“We have a responsibility to make sure the investments we make and the technology we use actually make our communities safer, protect residents’ civil rights and serve the public interest,” Johnson wrote in a statement on Tuesday. “In the coming weeks, we will begin piloting new public safety technologies, including gunshot detection technology. These pilots ensure that before we make long-term commitments, we understand what works, listen to the communities impacted, and make sure we’re getting results for Chicagoans, not simply enriching large corporations.”
The correspondence was sent before Mitts’ committee was set to hold a hearing to grill Johnson officials about the slow process to find a replacement for ShotSpotter.
No one from the Johnson administration showed up to the hearing. Aldermen were furious, saying the mayor’s team was ducking a chance to address questions on the turnaround for a new system.
Because the program announced Tuesday is a pilot, the vendors do not need to go through the city’s competitive bidding process. Roberts wrote the system would debut within the next two weeks with a goal “to ensure that procurement decisions are informed by evidence.”
Police districts 2, 5, 7, 9, 10 and 11 would be affected, per Roberts, who in her letter to aldermen said “appropriate privacy and civil liberties safeguards are in place before making long-term investments.”
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Mitts said during the hearing that her West Side constitutes are “just coming up to me, asking me about we need to get ShotSpotter back.”
“We cannot allow a life to be lost, and we’re spending money everywhere else and not trying to save people,” Mitts said. “That is the most disgusting thing I’ve heard of.”
The mayor has blasted the ShotSpotter technology as a “walkie-talkie on a stick,” arguing it wasted money and made police responses inefficient before he discontinued its use in September 2024. A coalition of grassroots activists opposed the technology because they believed it led to over-policing, especially in the South and West Side neighborhoods where it was most heavily in use.
They were criticized by many Black aldermen from those same communities who said it was a life-saving tool that helps pinpoint where wounded people are to first responders.
Johnson is heading into a tough reelection fight where he has touted the city’s violence numbers trending down under his administration, yet his challengers by and large are talking tough on crime.
Through last week, shootings are down 49% compared to this point four years ago, and homicides down 39% from that period, according to Chicago police data. The mayor has questioned why this progress — which he stressed is nowhere near complete — does not matter to his naysayers.