Once again, activists call for Mayor Johnson to get rid of ShotSpotter
The short version: Chicago activists are again demanding Mayor Johnson drop ShotSpotter, spotlighting how surveillance contracts survive on inertia and money long after their promises fall apart.
Our Take
Credit to CBS Chicago for keeping a spotlight on this: activists showing up, again, to ask why a technology with a documented record of false positives and questionable evidence quality keeps getting funded to the tune of millions more taxpayer dollars. This is the pattern with surveillance vendors — ShotSpotter, Flock, and their peers all sell the same pitch: trust us, this keeps you safe, just renew the contract. Meanwhile the actual evidence of effectiveness stays thin while the price tag and the footprint keep growing.
What's happening in Chicago isn't isolated. It's the same playbook cities use nationwide to lock in surveillance infrastructure without real public debate — quietly renew, bury it in a budget line, let the mayor's signature do the talking instead of a public vote. Once these systems are embedded in a city's policing apparatus, they're treated as permanent fixtures rather than tools that should have to keep earning their keep with actual results.
If you want to know what's already watching your own streets, check our camera map to see what's been deployed near you, and if you're ready to push back like Chicago residents are doing, our take-action page has concrete steps for making noise before the next contract renewal sails through unchallenged.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of CBS Chicago, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.