Politics
New Survey Finds Support for Gunshot Detection System — and Concerns, as Chicago Changes Course on Pilot Program
(WTTW News)
A majority of Chicagoans believe a new gunshot detection system would reduce the number of crimes committed with guns and speed up officer response times when shots are fired in Chicago, according to a new poll.
A survey conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago and commissioned by WTTW News found that 69% of participants believe a gunshot detection system was likely to allow officers to respond more quickly to gun violence and 52% said such a system was likely reduce crimes committed with guns.
However, the poll also found a majority of respondents were concerned that a gunshot detection system would increase the number of unjustified arrests by Chicago police officers and waste their time by sending them to false reports of gunfire, according to the results.
The survey found that 59% of participants believed a gunshot detection system was likely to cause police to respond to incidents where gunfire had not actually occurred, while 52% of respondents said such a system was likely to increase the number of unjustified arrests, according to the results.
This poll of 1,108 adults was conducted Sept. 13-23, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based ChicagoSpeaks Panel, which is designed to be representative of the Chicago population. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 4.1 percentage points.
The poll found that Black and Latino participants, as well as those who live on city’s South, West and Southwest Sides, were more likely to indicate they support the use of a gunshot detection system and are less concerned that it could lead to unintended consequences than White respondents and those who live on the North and Northwest Sides, according to the poll.
Chicago’s gunshot detection system, in place between 2017 and 2024, was only in use in neighborhoods on the South and West sides, records show.
The vast majority of violent crimes and murders occur on Chicago’s South and West sides and have for decades. Those wards, home to mostly Black and Latino residents, also have some of the highest rates of 911 calls for police service per population, according to an audit by the inspector general released in August 2023.
Nearly 72% of Chicago voters urged Johnson to replace the city’s controversial gunshot detection system during the Nov. 3 election, according to unofficial results from the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners.
Johnson ordered the Chicago Police Department to stop using the city’s ShotSpotter gunshot detection system in September 2024 and has been under intense pressure from a majority of the City Council to replace it ever since.
Chief Procurement Officer Sharla Roberts told a key City Council panel on Oct. 20 in writing that the city would begin testing a new gunshot detection system in six South and West side police districts by Nov. 3.
That pilot was to “evaluate a range of violence interruption and public safety technologies, including gunshot detection systems, with a particular focus on effectiveness, reliability and privacy protections,” Roberts wrote.
But Roberts told another City Council committee on Tuesday that those plans had been halted amid pushback from furious alderpeople. Instead of testing technology from just one firm, the pilot will test products from several firms, Roberts said.
Roberts did not provide members of the City Council with a firm date for that expanded pilot program, leaving many incensed and confused about the status of the city’s effort to ink a new contract for gunshot detection.
Interim Chicago Police Supt. Fred Waller told the City Council during CPD’s budget hearing on Oct. 28 that he had little information about the specifics of that pilot program. Waller told alderpeople that he did not know which company’s technology will be tested, how it will operate or how its effectiveness would be assessed.
Waller told alderpeople that a gunshot detection system would be “a valuable tool.”
An ordinance designed to force Johnson’s administration to award a new contract for a gunshot detection system within 30 days is set for a vote at the next City Council meeting. If no contract is awarded within 60 days, the measure orders Roberts to explain why in writing and be prepared to answer questions from the committee in person.
During 2025, the first full year without a gunshot detection system, the number of Chicago homicides hit a 60-year low.
Since the beginning of the year, homicides are down 4%, and the overall violent crime rate has dropped nearly 7%, according to CPD data.
The sustained drop in shootings and violence has not quieted demands from the City Council that Johnson reverse course immediately.
The City Council twice rebuked Johnson over ShotSpotter, which he has said leads to the overpolicing of neighborhoods home to a majority of Black and Latino Chicagoans and derided as nothing more than a “walkie talkie on a stick.”
The City Council attempted to give Chicago police Supt. Larry Snelling the power to bypass the mayor’s office and directly ink a contract with SoundThinking. Snelling supported the use of the system, but did not openly defy the mayor, who appointed him and has the power to fire him.
Snelling and other supporters of the gunshot detection system said it helped officers save lives when shootings were not reported to emergency services.
ShotSpotter was never used to directly dispatch paramedics.
Johnson has repeatedly said there is “clear evidence (ShotSpotter) is unreliable and overly susceptible to human error.” He blamed the system for the death of 13-year-old Adam Toledo, who was shot and killed by a Chicago police officer responding to an alert from the system in March 2021.
Johnson said there was no evidence that ShotSpotter lived up to promises that it would reduce gun violence.
Under fire, Johnson’s administration agreed to consider proposals from firms to use technology to “ensure quick response by law enforcement authorities in emergency situations.”
City officials required gunshot detection systems to cover the entire city of Chicago and be able to report “incidents” to police with positional data within 60 seconds, with 95% accuracy, to help the city “improve detection of violent crime, expedite response times, improve the likelihood of obtaining forensic evidence and speed up medical response and first aid for victims.”
The mayor’s 2027 budget includes $5 million for “software maintenance and licensing” as proposed by the mayor that could be used to fund a gunshot detection system.
Johnson has said repeatedly that he supports giving CPD access to technology that helps make Chicagoans safer but would not ink a new contract for a new gunshot detection system until officials could “find something that works.”
Johnson, who is running for reelection, has promised to continue to focus on what he said has proven to reduce crime in Chicago, like reopening mental health clinics, building affordable homes, improving public education and helping detectives solve crimes and get illegal guns off the street.
WTTW News coverage of policing and police reform is supported by The Joyce Foundation.
Contact Heather Cherone: @HeatherCherone | (773) 569-1863 | [email protected]
