Mayor Johnson spends $8.6 million on nine-month ShotSpotter deal — more than entire past year's cost
Johnson announced last week that the city planned to shut down the gunshot detection system after the historically violent summer months and the Democratic National Convention, making good on a key campaign promise.
Mayor Brandon Johnson, shown at a City Hall news conference last year.
Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times file
Mayor Brandon Johnson is spending $8.6 million to extend the city’s controversial deal with ShotSpotter for nine final months — shelling out significantly more than the city paid for the entire past year of service.
Johnson announced last week the city planned to shut down the gunshot detection system after the historically violent summer months and the Democratic National Convention, making good on a key campaign promise.
But the announcement caught ShotSpotter’s parent company, SoundThinking, off guard, sparking frantic negotiations resulting in a last-minute deal announced Feb. 16 — just hours before the contract was set to expire and the system could have gone offline.
In separate statements, SoundThinking and the mayor’s office ultimately said the technology would remain in place through Sept. 22, the date Johnson initially put forward to “decommission” ShotSpotter. That will be followed by a two-month “transition period.”
In the end, city officials rebuffed the company’s push for a one-year extension but effectively agreed to pay the full amount covering that period.
The new agreement is valued at over $8.6 million, 5% higher than for the entire year before.
Awarded in August 2018, the ShotSpotter deal is now valued at roughly $57.5 million. The city has so far paid out more than $36 million, with the latest payment of over $1 million coming Tuesday.
ShotSpotter equipment at Stony Island Avenue and East 63rd Street in Chicago.
Associated Press
But with apparently no options left to renew the initial contract, it’s unclear if the new agreement will require City Council approval. The mayor’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Meanwhile, Police Supt. Larry Snelling — a noted ShotSpotter proponent — signed an agreement in October giving the department six months of free access to another SoundThinking product that helps investigators sift through data from other jurisdictions.
The following month, SoundThinking CEO Ralph Clark told investors he hoped that trial could lead to “a mid- or high- six figure transaction in the latter half of 2024,” according to South Side Weekly.
’This whole process has been challenging’
During a news conference after Wednesday’s City Council meeting, Johnson pegged the extension’s cost at roughly $8 million without saying what he would have paid had he not announced his decision to terminate the contract before nailing down the terms.
Pressed to say what tipped the scales in favor of getting rid of the technology, Johnson cited a “series of investigations and reports” indicating ShotSpotter simply “hasn’t yielded the results that were promised.”
“It really came down to is it providing a real, true benefit which it promised to do? And unfortunately, report after report here in the city of Chicago has indicated otherwise,” Johnson said.
“We have to look very carefully at how the city of Chicago is appropriating dollars and whether or not there’s a benefit there,” he added. “And I just didn’t see enough evidence that there was a benefit.”
Gary Bunyard, SoundThinking’s vice senior president of sales, said “this whole process has been challenging in that the objectives of the city seem to be changing during this negotiation process.”
Bunyard said the company was “quite surprised” by Johnson’s announcement, which followed a Chicago Sun-Times report detailing his intention to cut off ShotSpotter after seven months. The company’s stock value tumbled afterwards, just as it had when Johnson was elected.
SoundThinking previously had said it spent much of last year trying to engage the city about a new deal and even sent a 12-month proposal last December.
That proposed memorandum of understanding ultimately led to “preliminary discussions” for an 8-to-9-month deal that would’ve allowed the city to initiate a formal bidding process for a new gunshot detection contract.
Company looks to prove its worth
SoundThinking holds that ShotSpotter saves lives and helps the police department quickly respond to shooting incidents.
Bunyard said the company hopes to work with the department to produce monthly statistics “showing the accuracy and the efficacy” of the technology, currently used in 12 of the department’s 22 police districts.
“We believe the data will show the value, the role we play in shoring up the gap in 911 [calls], in rendering aid to gunshot victims and helping the police department collect evidence,” he said. “But in order to do that, we need more data. We need a process in place that pulls this information from every district, every week and rolls it up on a monthly basis and makes it available to everybody who has an interest in this program.”
“That’s why we were requesting 12 months,” he added. “It’s going to take a while to get that all in place.”
A report issued by the city’s top watchdog in August 2021 acknowledged the “limitations in data quality and reporting” but also found that ShotSpotter has rarely led to investigatory stops or evidence of gun crimes.
SoundThinking is counting on the improved data collection to convince a majority of City Council members to overrule Johnson. That would seem to be a realistic goal if the police union’s staunchest supporters join forces with colleagues representing Black and Hispanic wards where violent crime is highest.
On Wednesday, Johnson was asked whether his mind was made up or whether he is open to changing his mind during the extension.
“This is a done deal. I’ve canceled ShotSpotter,” he said. “The point of this data collection … is more about how we build tools and systems to create safer communities.”
The statistics, compiled by the Chicago Police Department, show response times over the last six years were more than two minutes quicker with a ShotSpotter alert than the gunshot detection alert accompanied by a 911 call.
Votes on $70 million to help migrants and the bond issue to fund housing and economic development now are set for Friday. The Council was, however, poised to approve a slew of other measures.
The Police and Fire Committee approved an order championed by South Side Ald. David Moore that would empower the local alderperson to decide whether to keep ShotSpotter in their ward and prohibit the mayor from eliminating the technology in a ward where the local alderperson supports it without a full Council vote.
A City Council committee will consider an ordinance Monday that could let individual alderpersons decide whether to continue ShotSpotter gunshot detection technology in their wards.
Former Inspector General Joseph Ferguson, now president of the Civic Federation, told the Sun-Times that details of the new deal indicate the City Council ‘probably should be vetting and approving this thing’ and not ‘just sort of play along with the mayor.’
Chicago police initially claimed officers were fired upon by a man, but the Civilian Office of Police Accountability released information Tuesday indicating the person involved was a child and did not shoot at police.
Mayor Brandon’s Johnson’s administration negotiated an extension under less favorable terms than the original deal, which could violate city code, sources say. But the city’s Law Department says “a myriad of code provisions” permit the mayor’s extension.
Johnson announced last week that the city planned to shut down the gunshot detection system after the historically violent summer months and the Democratic National Convention, making good on a key campaign promise.
Mayor Brandon Johnson’s office worked out a renewal to the nearly $49 million contract with ShotSpotter’s parent company, SoundThinking, through Sept. 22.
The current $49 million contract with ShotSpotter expires Friday, meaning the gunshot detection system that covers 12 of the city’s 22 police districts could be shut down as early as the end of the day.
ShotSpotter is bad enough to give it the ax now, yet good enough to keep around for another six months? Only in Mayor Brandon Johnson’s City Hall does this make sense.
If Johnson was so determined to honor his campaign promise to get rid of the controversial gunshot detection system, why did he wait until the last minute to timidly announce the decision?
After the Sun-Times first reported the decision, Johnson said the city will drop the gunshot detection system Sept. 22, meaning cops will have access to it throughout the summer and the Democratic National Convention.
Ralph Clark, CEO of ShotSpotter’s parent company, defended the controversial gunshot detection technology, saying the company guarantees at least 90% efficacy.
With Mayor Johnson on the clock to decide whether to renew the ShotSpotter deal, an internal document obtained by the Sun-Times underscores previous criticism that the technology is ineffective and too costly.
A top mayoral aide said Johnson’s signature was unwittingly attached to a document authorizing the payment, which covered a contract extension approved by Lori Lightfoot.
ShotSpotter has rebranded itself as SoundThinking, but it’s still a false solution to Chicago’s real problem with gun violence, activists write. Millions spent on the technology should go to violent prevention efforts.
The rebrand comes months after the city extended the company’s contract for a second time. Chicago Mayor-elect Brandon Johnson has vowed to end the deal.
A ShotSpotter spokeswoman said the multimillion-dollar deal was extended in October, the same month Mayor-elect Brandon Johnson declared his candidacy.
In high-crime communities, citizens stop calling 911 for every shooting. ShotSpotter lets officers respond quickly and possibly stop active shooters, help victims and apprehend suspects faster than if they had to wait for 911 calls.
A report by a widely used gunshot detection firm says human employees are given broad discretion to decide whether a sound is a gunshot, thunder or nothing.
By Garance Burke | Associated Press and Michael Tarm | Associated Press
ShotSpotter came under increased scrutiny after a police officer fatally shot 13-year-old Adam Toledo. In August 2021, the city’s Office of the Inspector General found the technology can change the way officers interact with areas they patrol.
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