ShotSpotter
The short version: A Lincoln Lodge comedy bit on Chicago's ShotSpotter spending doubles as a reminder that gunshot-detection mics are just one more line item in the surveillance budget nobody asked to vote on.
Our Take
Comedian Deanna Ortiz and the Lincoln Lodge crew are doing what good satire does: pointing out the absurdity of a city dropping tens of millions of tax dollars on a system, ShotSpotter, that studies and Chicago's own inspector general found rarely led to evidence of a gun crime and often sent police racing into neighborhoods on false alarms. Chicago actually let its ShotSpotter contract lapse in 2024 after years of criticism, but the bigger lesson survives the punchline: cities keep buying surveillance tech first and asking whether it works second.
That's the same pattern we track with license plate readers. Flock Safety and similar vendors pitch ALPR networks the same way ShotSpotter was pitched, as a low-cost force multiplier, and city councils approve them with little public debate, less oversight, and no real evaluation of accuracy or misuse down the line. The comedy here is that Chicagoans are laughing about the acoustic mics while a much bigger, quieter network of cameras is still expanding across the country practically unremarked.
If ShotSpotter deserved public scrutiny for its cost and its record, plate readers deserve at least as much. Check our map to see what's already watching your streets, and hit take action if you want your city council asking the same hard questions Chicago finally got around to.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of TheLincolnLodge, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.