Mayor Brandon Johnson pressed on ShotSpotter contract
The short version: FOX 32 Chicago presses Mayor Brandon Johnson on the fate of Chicago's ShotSpotter contract, spotlighting how surveillance deals get renewed with little public input.
Our Take
Credit to FOX 32 Chicago for cornering Mayor Johnson on a question a lot of cities dodge: what actually happens when a surveillance contract's deadline hits. ShotSpotter (now folded into SoundThinking) isn't ALPR tech, but the pattern is identical to what we track with Flock Safety — a private vendor sells a city on a promise of safety, the contract auto-renews or gets extended in the shadows, and years later residents are still asking whether the thing even works or just quietly expands police reach into their neighborhoods.
Chicago's ShotSpotter saga has already shown the playbook: inflated effectiveness claims, disproportionate deployment in Black and Latino neighborhoods, and a mayor who campaigned against the system before getting boxed in by budget and political pressure. That's the same trap city councils fall into with Flock's ALPR cameras — easy to install, hard to kill, and rarely re-evaluated once the press conference photo op is over.
If your city is quietly renewing a surveillance contract without a real public hearing, that's worth flagging. Check our camera map to see what's already been deployed near you, and use our take-action guide to push your council for the same kind of accountability FOX 32 is demanding in Chicago.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of FOX 32 Chicago, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.