Deborah Witzburg Interview on ShotSpotter Report
The short version: Chicago's own watchdog found no proof ShotSpotter improves policing outcomes — a warning sign for every city trusting unaudited surveillance tech, including Flock ALPRs.
Our Take
The Chicago Justice Project's sit-down with Deputy Inspector General Deborah Witzburg is worth your time because it does something rare: it asks a surveillance vendor to prove its tech actually works, instead of just taking the sales pitch on faith. Her report on ShotSpotter found the Chicago Police Department couldn't demonstrate a clear operational benefit — despite years of deployment and millions of taxpayer dollars. That's not a fringe complaint; it's an independent city watchdog saying the emperor may have no clothes.
This matters way beyond gunshot detection. Flock Safety's ALPR network is spreading through American towns with the same pattern: a vendor claims public safety wins, a department signs on, and nobody circles back to ask for hard evidence of reduced crime or solved cases. Communities deserve audits like Witzburg's for every surveillance system, not just the ones that make headlines after a controversy. Oversight shouldn't be an afterthought — it should be the price of admission before cameras and sensors go up.
If your city is running Flock cameras without this kind of scrutiny, that's a problem you can act on. Check our camera map to see what's already watching your neighborhood, and head to take-action for tools to push your local officials toward the same accountability Chicago is finally demanding of ShotSpotter.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of Chicago Justice Project, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.