Chicago IG report finds CPD investigations of ShotSpotter alerts 'rarely' find gun crimes
The short version: An ABC 7 Chicago report on the Inspector General's ShotSpotter findings shows another acoustic surveillance system generating lots of police activity but few actual gun crime cases.
Our Take
ABC 7 Chicago's coverage of the Inspector General's ShotSpotter report lands on a familiar note for anyone tracking automated surveillance systems: the technology generates a flood of police activity, but the actual public safety payoff is thin. When investigations 'rarely' turn up evidence of gun crimes despite constant alerts, you have to ask what all those stops, detentions, and heightened-alert patrols are actually accomplishing — and who's bearing the cost of that gap between promise and reality.
This matters beyond ShotSpotter specifically. It's the same pattern we see with Flock Safety's ALPR network: a vendor sells a city on the idea that constant automated monitoring will solve crime, local officials buy in with little independent scrutiny, and years later an oversight body finally digs into the data and finds the results don't match the sales pitch. Communities are left with the surveillance infrastructure, the budget line item, and the civil liberties exposure — but not necessarily the safety gains that justified it in the first place.
Credit to ABC 7 Chicago for pushing this into public view. If your city is running Flock cameras or similar systems, don't wait for an Inspector General to ask the hard questions years down the line — check our camera map to see what's already deployed near you, and visit our take-action page to push your local officials for transparency now.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of ABC 7 Chicago, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.