Shotspotter to End

Derided by some (including us) as a very very expensive "spent casing finder," Conehead has decided that cops responding rapidly to the area of shots fired and having a better-than-average chance of apprehending offenders is just a waste of resources:

• Mayor Brandon Johnson announced Tuesday that he won’t renew the city’s controversial contract with ShotSpotter, making good on a key campaign promise to do away with the gunshot detection system that has come under heavy fire for allegedly being overly costly and ineffective.

  After the Sun-Times reported on the decision earlier in the day, Johnson’s office issued a statement saying the city “will decommission the use of ShotSpotter technology on September 22,” meaning cops will have access to the system throughout the historically violent summer months and the Democratic National Convention.

So it's good enough to use during the "historically violent summer months".....but not afterwards?

Well, at least we're sure this was a well thought out decision:

• Sources said Johnson outlined the plan during a closed-door meeting Monday night with city officials and advocates, though Chicago police officials weren't invited.

Oh. 

But there's something on the horizon?

• While Johnson had publicly remained tight-lipped about his plans for ShotSpotter since taking office, he vowed to nix the deal as a candidate and “invest in new resources that go after illegal guns without physically stopping and frisking Chicagoans on the street.”

So we're hiring....Superman? With his x-ray vision?

And then we get to the actual reasons for ending Shotspotter:

• He insisted the technology is “unreliable and overly susceptible to human error,” adding that it “played a pivotal role” in the fatal police shooting of 13-year-old Adam Toledo in March 2021.

  Many of those concerns were reiterated by critics of ShotSpotter, who frame it as a costly surveillance tool that has led to overpolicing in minority communities.

That wasn't human error. The system worked EXACTLY as designed and got cops to the area where two assholes (including one named Lil Homicide) were shooting at innocent people driving down 26th Street, attempting to maim and/or kill them because they were headed into someone other gang's territory. 

And the "overpolicing" argument doesn't fly either - cops go to where the crime is. And if improperly raised shitbird yutes are violating laws and morals by shooting at innocent passersby, then cops ought to be around to enforce the laws. Quickly. So they are apprehended and don't do it again.

In any event, if they don't want the police in the area where shots are being regularly fired, you're just making our job easier. We'll show up after the fact. Maybe we'll find a crime scene, maybe not. Maybe there will be evidence to convict someone that we won't be apprehending because we arrive five minutes later rather than one minute after. Body Removal will cart away the remains, and the gangs will be plotting their revenge to continue the circle of violence, innocents will get caught in the crossfire, parents will bury more children, and cops will be five more minutes away.

Wash, rinse, repeat.

Maybe we can half-staff the SDSC rooms now....get an extra twenty-two cops on the street every shift.