Thread by @AnaeaLay

Hello, Chicago and beyond. Today I'll be livetweeting the Chicago City Council's Public Safety Committee meeting for #CHIdocumenters @CHIdocumenters. It starts in about 45 minutes, and the agenda is full of things you'll want to follow. Watch along here: livestream.com/accounts/28669…

If you'd like to download the agenda for yourself, it's linked in this tweet. Technically there's only 1 item on today's agenda, but it has an "and" that's doing some heavy lifting. There are two topics and they are:

1. Shotspotter
2. Personnel shortages
chicago.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=A&…

If you'd like a catch up on Shotspotter, @BlockClubCHI has you covered. Look over their article in the time before 1pm, as you prepare your pot of tea (red robe oolong over here) and get ready to settle in for hearing!

blockclubchicago.org/2021/11/12/ald…

It is 1pm and the stream is live. Right now it's just showing the "This meeting is now being livstreamed and recorded for the public graphic," but I'm sure we'll be underway soon. Last chance to grab your tea!

Chairman Taliaferro has called us to order and we're starting roll call.

We have thirteen members present which means we meet quorum.

We're starting public comments, each person gets 3 minutes.

Resident of 27 ward speaking against Shotspotter. "The days leading up to this hearing have showcased council's poor understanding of technology." Calls out Alds Lopez and Taliaferro for claiming tech isn't racist when opposite is documented. Ties Adam Toledo's death to this tech

48th Ward Resident, is disturbed by everything he's learned about the Shotspotter contract. Cites the distribution of where Shotspotter is deployed to systemic surveillance of Black and Brown committees. Calls out short notice of hearing as a problem.

1st Ward resident calling out hearing as only being for protecting Shotspotter. Addresses rescheduling of this hearing to put it after city budget passed. Questions failure to invite Michael Williams to speak about his experience as a victim of Shotspotter manipulation.

40th ward resident opposed to hearing. Cites statements earlier this week by Ald Taliaferro that hearing was canceled. Wants a "true hearing" with independent research & investigations. Cites Adam Toledo and Michael Williams as victims of Shotspotter & police misconduct

(More info about Michael Williams. chicago.cbslocal.com/2021/08/19/sho…)

20th ward resident also opposed. Points out there are 6 devices in her neighborhood & they haven't helped. Calls out millions spent on tech instead of housing, the Peacebook, and Treatment not Trauma. Has crowd in room speaking with her on the issue. "My safety is not for sale."

46th ward resident. Opens "this is a lobby session dressed as a quote unquote hearing." Stresses that Shotspotter & surveillance tech cannot prevent crime that has already happened. Instead, it sends police in escalated mindset into disinvested neighborhoods.

Public comment is concluded, it was uniformly negative.

Chair Taliaferro says everyone on committee should have received a report, they voted to support it.

Ald Nick Sposato interrupts to make sure everyone knows he's there to support Shotspotter.

Chair Taliaferro explains purpose of hearing, that it's for informational purposes only with no vote, and lists who will be here to speak. Not all witnesses will give statements, but all will be available to answer questions.

Starting w Jonathan Manes of MacArthur Justice Center

"There's no evidence that Shotspotter is helping and there is evidence that it's affirmatively causing harm."

9/10 shotspotter alerts find no evidence of crime. Dead end alerts happen very often, about 63 times per day.

The $9million of the contract only scratches the surface because the police deployments in response to false alarms costs money, also.

Dead end alerts cause other costs. Leads to hostile encounters, false jail time.

Also found the way they're deployed tracks with Black and Brown communities. 80% of Black residents live under Shotspotter surveillance. Only 30% of white residents.

Shotspotter claim of 80% accuracy but isn't valid. Only consider an alert false if there's a customer complaint.

Tech was deployed without city council's involvement or an opportunity for communities to comment. He's glad the hearing is happening and looks forward to questions.

Chair Taliaferro is trying to speak but is inaudible. Other committee members speaking up to let him know about the problem.

Vice Chair Osterman requesting thumbs up to proceed with next speaker. Receives it. "I'm not taking over the meeting." Osterman introducing Deborah Witzburg, deputy Inspector General for Public Safety.

Wants to talk about the report issued by her office, and what it did and didn't do. They were looking for operational value of Shotspotter. Looked at CPD data at how often a shotspotter alert is cited as aid to prosecution. Wants to say there are other analyses to do here.

"This is not so much about a right way and a wrong way to operate the police department." This is about costs and risks of operating it.

For each Shotspotter alert, there is an event number assigned. It's a unique identifier. Each event # receives a disposition code. (Some are missing) There are different codes for different events. Looking at the 50,000 Shotspotter alert from period of inquiry.

9% of cases have disposition for gun related crime.

Looked at investigatory stop report, Found they could only link 1000 Shotspoter alerts to investigatory stop reports. What they did see was a "generalized impression," that there were a lot of Shotspotter alerts in an area as motivation for investigatory stops.

She thinks that if it is determined that the demonstrated operational value is worth continuing to invest in, then the data shows opportunities for maximizing benefit, like deploying emergency services. "Current demonstrable value is fairly low."

Chair Taliaferro's audio is back. Introducing Deputy Chief Larry Snelling.

"I'm just here to talk about the boots on the ground experience...there's has been quite a few lives saved." Says they get to the scene faster than waiting for a call from OEMC.

Just because when the officers arrive on scene there's no evidence of a crime doesn't mean one didn't happen. It just means there's no offender on scene and they might have used a revolver which doesn't leave casings.

"We could talk about percentages...what we need to look at the 10% of the time it does [alert about a shooting]."

Says integration with SDSC (strategic deployment) has allowed them to track vehicles used in drive-bys.

Next, Anastasia Walker, Executive Director of Office of Public Safety Administration. She's introducing Dan Casey deputy director of IT and Steve Marist (?) manager of IT.

*Annastasia Walker

Outlines out PSA operates, all three of them are here for questions.

Next, Ralphh Clark, CEO of Shotspotter. Andrew Grayson and Jeff Magee also here with him.

"Chicago is not unique in seeing an increase in homicides." Digs into the national statistics, including gap between number of gunfire incidents that occur and ones that are reported.

Is leaning into statistics on response time for gunshot wound victims and claiming these alerts save lives.

Moves on to touting integration with SDSC and value of aggregated data in strategic planning and deployment.

Also have reps for body cameras, license plate readers, pod cameras etc., here to answer questions.

Chair hands off to Ald Raymond Lopez who asks to allow reps from other vendors to introduce themselves. I missed some of them but:

Esmael Ansari Senior Director of Goverment affairs at Axon, provides body camera, taser management systems and something I missed for CPD.

Pat Hughes from camera company that does pod cameras and LPRs (License Plate readers)

Also a deputy mayor for Chicago is here.

Ald Lopez is speaking now. Even though much of the conversation has been about Shotspotter, that's not the only topic. CPD is heading into being understaffed. Thinks we can agree that the data collection and reporting is lacking and needs to be better.

"Many of you have said arresting is not enough. Programs are not enough. And you are right. And technology is not enough. It's a tool in the toolbox."

Urges colleagues to not focus solely on Shotspotter. "Technologies know no color."

Says there's no apprehension in his neighborhoods when "that ping goes off" and the officers come.

No on to Vice Chair Harry Osterman. He appreciates how the resolution under discussion is written because it touches on technology and CPD staffing shortage. Wants to start by asking question of Annastasia Walker, wants to know why Shotspotter contract was renewed.

Answered that in 2018 was because vendor was the only one with the tech. Renewal "could have been for a whole host of reasons." Wants to hand off to Dan Casey for further answer.

Dan Casey says it was based on distance, uptime, and timeliness and vendor exceeded performance of those contractual standards.

Osterman: Do you look at all of those [tech contracts] comprehensively or is it being reviewed on the technical aspects contract by contract?

Walker says they do it on the whole.

Osterman asking Deputy Chief Snelling whether CPD tracks outcomes of incidents.

Snelling says information is listed in a case report, and in a post-shooting missions. OEMC also gets information from officers.

Osterman: Asks whether Snelling as a commander would prefer to have officers on foot posts or Shotspotter?

Snelling says he had all of that when he was a commander. Shotspotter was important because it gave the officers the opportunity to respond quicker.

Snelling continues, saying that gunshots are so common in neighborhoods like Englewood that people don't call them in because they don't pay attention.

Osterman asks Witzburg to expand on her observation that officers were beginning to rely on Shotspotter to change police behavior.

Snelling interrupts to say he'd disagree.

Witzburg says this was a qualitative review of reports, which come from narrative after a stop. Says they saw reports where the officer refers to an impression that there were a lot of Shotspotter alerts. Says that implies the tech is changing how police respond.

Ald Smith's turn to ask questions. Expresses confusion about purpose of hearing and whether it's about whether the tech is accurate enough, should be used at all, etc. Directs question to Manes from MacArthur over whether the accuracy rate being 30% would change their stance.

Manes responds that the real question is whether the reactive approach is useful. He's happy to address things, there have been claims made since he spoke that aren't accurate. Smith gives him permission to respond to those.

On the question of saving lives, points out that the study cited as increasing response times, the study saw no difference in the mortality rate between Shotspotter areas and non-Shotspotter areas which means there's no evidence Shotspotter saved lives.

Also says the data about unreported gunshots from the Brookings institute starts with the assumption that Shotspotter alerts are actual gun fire and makes assertions based on that.

Says the only way to know if the data is valid is to do validation by testing for false positives and in 20 years, Shotspotter has never done that.

Smith goes on to ask Shotspotter whether they can produce findings from rigorous data.

Answered by Customer Success Director assigned to Chicago, Jeff Magee.

Magee says CPD decided how to set up Shotspotter with the SDSC. They have a line where support can be emailed for false alerts. Continues along this line until Smith interrupts and asks "Is it true that you say that 97% of the time it's a gunshot?"

Magee says that it is across all their customers. They track it by district in Chicago, the lowest is 94%-99%.

Smith asking whether if police get to the scene and there's no evidence of shooting, but they don't report it to Shotspotter, does it get listed as accurate?

Magee says they welcome reports and conversations about accuracy from CPD.

Smith in stressing a point about the need for a rigorous process to determine accuracy points out that automatic gunfire, which is more common in Chicago, would leave shells.

Chair Taliaferro interrupts Smith. Asks her to wrap up, says she's had the floor for twenty minutes. (She hasn't.) She cedes the floor.

Moving on to Ald Martin.

Ald Martin asks whether Shotspotter runs all year, including around July 4th, answered it does. Asks whether fireworks can cause false positives, they can.

Dan Casey says they weed out false positives.

Martin asks for the PSA to produce a non-exhaustive list of the types of sounds that can cause a false positive.

Martin asks about a report from the Southside Weekly from 2017, where the majority of reported Shotspotter alerts also had a call to 911 within five minutes. Is asking Witzburg whether they know how many Shotspotter alerts also have 911 calls.

Witzburg says they don't and doesn't know how to match that data.

I think the article Martin referenced is this one: southsideweekly.com/shots-heard-ro…

Same question to DC Snelling, Snelling says he thinks they do, refers to Dan Casey from PSA.

Casey says preliminary data says about 80% of cases did not have 911 calls within five minutes within half a mile (or a quarter mile). This is for alerts where there was evidence of gun-related crime.

Martin asks does an alert result in the same response time from CPD as a 911 call?

DC Snelling says it depends. With Shotspotter, officer gets pinpointed address from SDSC, so it's quicker than being dispatched by call from OEMC.

Martin asks whether it is practice to respond as quickly to report from 911 as a report from Shotspotter.

Snelling says there would be no difference in how an officer responds to either. Officer immediately makes their way to the location.

Martin asking about analysis that 80% of alerts don't yield evidence of a gun crime. How long does an officer remain on the scene after determining there's no evidence of a gun-related crime?

Snelling says first thing officers do is tour the area for victims first. Then they tour the area for evidence. Catalogs variables that can affect how an officer does/doesn't find evidence of a shooting.

Martin pressing to ask for how long officers remain on the scene since if they're spending a lot of time on the scene looking for evidence of a shooting and it yields nothing, that's probably a significant amount of officer time.

Snelling says he doesn't wan to make it sound like they don't spend time on the scene, but when there's a lot of activity they want to get that officer back on patrol. Says when they don't have a victim, they might spend 5-10 minutes looking.

Martin asks Manes whether other cities have canceled their contract.

Manes says yes, four have, he can't remember which off the top of their head. Fall River and Charleston. Complaints were too many false alerts and it was taking up officer time.

Asks whether he can correct false info from earlier. Receives permission and says the question about 4th July and New Years, then reads the portion of the contract that says those days and the 48 hours before and after don't count against accuracy

and the system operates in "fireworks suppression mode." Says there's also nothing in the contract requiring false alerts to be kept below a certain level, and no requirement for validation testing.

Point of information from Ald Scott, speaking for North Lawndale they have fireworks happening from April on through summer all the time, how is that dealt with?

? is addressed to anyone who can answer, including Shotspotter. Manes speaks up after silence to say that they need to do validation to know. Relying on reports from police about false alerts doesn't work bc they can't know whether it was a false alert even when they find nothing

Walker speaking up to address Martin's earlier question to assert that she was, in fact, aware the contract had exemptions for 4th of July and New Years.

Ald Reboyras taking his turn to ask questions now.

"What is a false positive and what should the city of Chicago expect as a false positive rate?"

Taliaferro asks Shotspotter to answer that. Long silence that leads to query whether they're even there.

Shotspotter now thinking, "Sorry, we had audio video issues." Their screen is now just labeled as Shotspotter. The suited person on the left of the screen is the one talking. He hasn't spoken before.

Says they do not have false positive data for the city of Chicago. They know they would lose the confidence of the police if they're sending them into situations expecting gunfire and there is none.

They'd love to work with Chicago to develop data. Says their false positive rate in places that do track the data is 1%. Sees no reason tracking in Chicago wouldn't lead to the same results.

Now Ald Scott. Says he'd like to work with department to develop real data around false positives because in his neighborhood in the summer they must be wearing officers out running around from false alert to false alert from fireworks.

Wants to know how places where devices are determined and what the rationale for how to deploy them is.

Gary from Shotspotter (the guy on the left who was speaking just before) speaking up to answer again. Says all of their coverage areas "are driven by data. Customer data." Started in district 7 and 11 and have subsequently been asked to add 10 districts for a total of 12.

Driven by City of Chicago based on Chicago's analysis of historical crime data in those areas. Now cover 50% of Chicago, 84% of homicides ocurred in those covered areas. That tells them the city did a good job of determining where Shotspotter was needed most.

Shotspotter rep on the right (Magee, iirc) says their deployment is always driven by data, it is based on sounds, doesn't see Black or brown.

Says they haven't lost a customer since 2012, don't expect to this year, and over 60% of their customers have or are planning to expand their coverage.

Ald Scott asking DC Snelling what officers' canvas looks like in the "high times of fireworks and possible false positives."

Snelling says the tech does not detect as much of the fireworks as one might think. It does detect roman candles and others that make a sound like gunfire

Snelling continues that as soon as neighbors say it was just kids setting off fireworks, or see evidence of the fireworks, they code the incident and move on in seconds.

Ald Ramirez-Rosa speaking now. Says he submitted a resolution asking for a joint hearing with Budget committee on this. Thanks for inclusion of Manes from MacArthur and Witzburg from IG.

Says many of the answers today have raised more questions than they addressed and really wants that joint hearing.

Asks Shotspotter about claims that there's been no independent testing. Asks whether there's been independent testing. (Smith also asked this question earlier and got a non-response.)

Middle Shotspotter rep says in the early days they'd do live-fire tests. Would take a variety of weapons into the field to test and they were very good at detecting them. Less of that happening now because people are talking to their peers and don't feel the need.

Ramirez-Rosa asking whether it was only firing weapons, or also other things that might sound like gunfire.

Answered that yes, just weapons, they'd also test suppressed fire which is a different category in their service agreement.

"We have a lot of interesting tricks up our sleeves to detect gunfire instead of fireworks." Explains other elements that allow them to exclude fireworks, none of it references testing efficacy of these techniques.

Gary-on-the-left from Shotspotter says that you'd be more confident of their performance if you knew how many bangs, booms, and pops they filter out.

Ald Ramirez-Rosa wants to know why, if their filtering is so good, they don't test it.

Gary says that since livefire in urban environments is so controlled nobody wants to do it because it's dangerous.

Ramirez-Rosa wants to know why they haven't tested *other* noises. "You tell me that customers aren't asking for this testing. I'm a resident of Chicago...I want to see testing."

Is bothered that the contract that says on 4th of July and New Years, when there are a lot of fireworks and violence, they don't guarantee that they work.

Asks Manes about what MacArthur has found about accuracy and why their 97% number isn't valid.

Manes says that the way Shotspotter tests accuracy, as they've described it here today, is based on complaints, that they have no complaints from Chicago, therefore they are perfectly accurate which can't possibly be true.

Says need two types of testing, foundational testing of the system against sounds like fireworks and backfiring cars to test operators and filters against known sounds.

Then also need to test deployment as installed because sound is affected by the built environment. None of that testing has happened in Chicago.

Taliaferro is explaining to the technology company that they need to use the hand raising tech in the meeting platform in order to be recognized for responding to what other witnesses say.

Middle-Shotspotter-person says they have a whitepaper published about their livefire testing in Pittsburgh to do mutli-lateration to figure out location of shots.

Ald Rodriguez, believes that when we do crime fighting we need to be objective, scientific, and based on data. Says a lot of the support for Shotspotter sounds like hunches.

Goes on to ask Witzburg about the correlation to investigatory stops.

Witzburg says out of 50,000 alerts, 1056 investigatory stops that could be matched to the alerts and yeilded 244 reports related to arrests, 152 guns recovered.

Says they also did a text analysis of the narrative reports, they were referring to their impressions that there were a lot of Shotspotter alerts in an area, which looks like evidence that they are relying on that impression to promote them to stop members of the public.

Explains that even if those impressions are accurate, they're only going to form in areas with the Shotspotters, so they become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Ald Rodriguez asking Walker from PSA for what the finable offenses for failure of service in the contract.

Walker says the only service level agreements they care about are administrative. First is distance, must be able to tell the city within a range what the distance is.

Second is time, how quickly they inform the city, and the third is uptime.

Rodriguez asks how they've done, Walker says they've not only met these requirements but exceeded them.

Per Walker, they have to be within the distance the shot was fired from 90% of the time, they have to report under a minute 90% of the time, and they exceed that.

Rodriguez says he thinks we're missing a massive agreement related to false positives.

New question for Manes, is there data that proves that there's some sort of drop or decrease in crime after installation of this technology.

Manes says the peer reviewed studies show no reduction in crime. Says study in Journal of Experimental technology in St. Louis found no reduction in crime but significant increase in police deployments.

Another study looked at 60 counties with Shotspotter tech over 17 years, compared homicide and arrest rates before and after and saw no difference.

No study in Chicago, would like to see it.

Manes addressing Clark from Shotspotter saying "There's no secret sauce here," and said Shotspotter is currently fighting in court to have the protocol used by their human operators to determine whether a noise is gunfire private,

and that an expert evaluator who has seen it says that should be provided to anyone who wants to consider using Shotspotter should see it to see how subjective it is.

Magee from Shotspotter says data in Chicago on failure to reduce crime doesn't count because of the pandemic.

Shotspotter says the same author of the St. Louis study also did a study in Cincinnati and came up with some interesting conclusions. Doesn't describe those conclusions further. Says the difference is in strategic deployment and operationalizing the response.

Bouncing Cincinnati question to Manes. Manes says he's heard of the study, hasn't read it, but re how it's used operationally, "the idea that a technology that is sending police out on 20,000 additional dead end alerts is the best bang for the buck is dubious to me."

Manes reframes this as what more effective use could the money for this tech be put toward that might address these problems with better results.

Ald Taylor speaking now, addressing how all the money we're spending on this doesn't seem to reduce crime at all. Says she knows DC Snelling & respects him, but wants him to address the clearance rate. All she sees from Shotspotter is police showing up over backfires from trucks

DC Snelling addressing ? about clearance rate of murders in Chicago, he'd need to reach out to the detective division to get that, but he knows that this year they've cleared more murders than in 20 years.

Snelling says the money and the contract aren't his concern, safety is.

Ald Taliaferro interrupting to say that when he was an officer, the department deployed strategies that he believes reduced crime, but a lot of the investment in body worn cameras and license plate readers doesn't seem to have helped because numbers are spiking since 2019.

Taylor says it's because they aren't investing in human infrastructure. She's been asked to spend $20,000 of her menu money that should go to repairing streets on a camera system that never works.

Wants to know why we're spending so much on this when city council was never asked about it. "The thought that Shotspotter is here today with they suits and ties, they should have come back to talk to us."

Ald Rodríguez thanks Manes & Witzburg for being here. Doesn't have a ? but wants to make a comment: We're getting information about how this tech isn't helping us make people safe but we know what would work. With $9million we could reopen three closed mental health clinics.

Wants a joint hearing, says we need to cancel this contract.

Ald Sigcho Lopez, says we're missing analysis on the cost & benefit of this software. Need to have costs associated with over policing included. Says case of Adam Toledo is still fresh. "Are we investing in a reactive approach?" His ? to Manes is what the cost:benefit analysis is

Manes says the track record on jailing your way out of a problem isn't great. Need to reduce violence in the 1st place. There are strategies show to help like violence intervention programs, also environmental programs.

"If you make an environment look and feel better, there's fewer crimes."

Says that re 911 calls, there's evidence that after Shotspotter is installed, calls to 911 go down, that's not clear why.

? to Witzburg, are we looking at this in terms of clearance rates? What's the cost:benefit.

Witzburg says what they're looking at is well before anywhere talking about clearance rates. Just looking for evidence of a gun crime. Says this is giving them the benefit of the doubt because it's the lowest possible threshold.

Agrees that a cost: benefit analysis is important.

She stresses that they did not find demonstrable operational benefit.

Rep from Shotspotter says that 911 calls are actually going up because they now trust police response.

Says this not a surveillance tech. Can use data to assess deployment of resources with is not reactive.

Sigcho Lopez says we already have evidence of the risks. We've lost a 13 year old boy, and one life is too much.

Wants to know what is in the contract for how to cancel it?

Walker says she's never been faced with a cancellation of the contract. Would have to work with the budget office and take direction from them.

Manes says the contract says that the contract can be cancelled at any time with no penalty. Says one reason given for canceling would be no appropriated funding, so council could cancel the contract by removing funding.

Ald Vazquez has a big problem with how they had to fight tooth and nail to get a crisis response team going through the budget office, but Shotspotter just gets $9million like that.

Wants to know why CPD isn't reporting false positives.

DC Snelling says that if officers in field gets a false positive, their officers are getting back to work. They don't have time to have officers waste a bunch of manpower hours making reports. Do let OEMC know it's a false positive.

Vasquez says that the decision not to report false positives is inherently wrong because you can't hold the system accountable and keep sending people out to waste their time.

? for Walker, what discussions were had about improvements for the renewal?

Walker says contract is from 2018 and they're working on an RFP for next year.

? about who is involved in defining the RFP. Walker says she's not entirely sure, but her office abided by all requirements

? about what the process was around deciding to renew since it wasn't going to the council.

Walker said there was discussion with CPD, who didn't complain and it gave them time to write a spec and take their time.

Has Shotspotter ever been penalized for anything or been warned about?

Walker says there are only two holidays where they don't penalize Shotspotter for fireworks. They've never been penalized.

Ever done any evaluation of Shotspotter numbers?

Dan Casey says they work with Shotspotter for numbers as with all their vendors. Also get analysis from CPD.

Vasquez asks for data from other cities about their complaints.

Gary Bunyard says they'd be happy to share that data.

Asks whether Shotspotter would share bang, pop and boom data with council at a subsequent hearing. Answered with yes.

Asks for data about 911 calls going up because he believes they would go down. Shotspotter says the districts have that data.

Vasquez says it'd be nice to get it from them since CPD isn't forthcoming

Asks Walker if there are considerations about getting independent data on their accuracy, the deployment in Chicago, etc.

Walker says that can happen, & they're going to listen to CPD about what they need

Ald Hadden also wants hearing specifically for Shotspotter. Wants, after one of Shotspotter said very definitively earlier that Shotspotter reduces gun violence, wants to hear from anyone from city or CPD how Shotspotter reduces gun violence in Chicago.

Walker says Office of PSA doesn't keep crime data, must refer to CPD. DC Snelling says they've used the tech and alerts to determine possibility of where retaliation is going to occur.

Snelling says we have to police constitutionally. If they get too proactive then they're being unconstitutional.

Ald Hadden thanks Snelling for answer, acknowledges that CPD is working very hard to address violence, but in his very nuanced and thorough response, Shotspotter wasn't really a part of it. She's not convinced the specific thing this tech does is actually helping us.

Says she'd rather have the police going to people to talk to them than showing up from a report from the tool.

"I'm not hearing where this really useful."

In response to Shotspotter's hand being up, "Respectfully, this is a city of Chicago question...I don't need to hear about the utility of this tool from the people selling us the tool."

Ald Sposato next. "When I say I'll be brief, I'll be brief." Says to Talafierro he's sorry about the attacks he had to endure at the beginning of the meeting. Gives hearing an A+ on civility. Says clearly we need more data, especially from CPD.

Shotspotter is something he supports. Shotspotter hears gunshots, what we do with that, this is on us. Wants to know why "Jonathan" from MacArthur was answering questions when Shotspotter should have been.

Ald Ervin supports the technology. "I live in the 11th district. I have more homicides than anybody in the city..." and calls out others for not asking what the people affected want before making "lofty" policy. Agrees that more data is needed.

"It incenses me" that people want to continue telling Black folks how to live.

Ald Hairston, "I was around when Shotspotter first presented to the city of Chicago which was more than a decade ago." Said Shotspotter was why police could respond to mass shootings in 4th and 5th wards as quickly as they did. Is interested in getting more data.

Does think city council should be involved in deciding what should be in the next contract. Thanks IG for work she did even though there are some holes in her report.

Ald Thompson says he has Shotspotter in his ward and finds it to be effective. Compares it to a fire alarm.

Asks Walker how long contract was renewed for. Walker says it was renewed last year and will be going out to bid next year.

Ald Raymond Lopez, wants to ask how many times a license plate reader snaps a picture of a license plate. Dan Casey says over 3 million. Lopez asks how many of them lead to convictions and arrests. Casey doesn't have the answer but it's lower than the Shotspotter rate.

Goes on at length about how all the tools have small returns. Money toward root causes won't help. "Nothing we have is going to deter them if that's what in their heart to shoot and commit crimes." Wants to be able to arrest and jail people.

Chair Taliaferro wants to know how many calls of shots being fired did not have shots, and wants to know about response times.

Moves to wrap up meeting. Jokingly thanks the non-Shotspotter vendors for doing a great job during this meeting.

Thanks IG Whitzburg who is leaving her office soon for her service and involvement in community.

Asks for motion to adjourn, gets it.

Meeting adjourned at 4:48 p.m. This concludes the Chicago City Council meeting of the Public Safety Committee. The next meeting is scheduled for November 19, 2021. For more meeting coverage, check out documenters.org.