ShotSpotter Follies Continue

If nothing else, this is entertaining politics:

• The Chicago City Council made a significant break with Mayor Brandon Johnson, voting to give the deciding vote over ShotSpotter technology to the city’s police superintendent. The ordinance passed 33-14 in City Council chambers on Wednesday, with Johnson immediately vowing to veto the measure.

  The measure passed during a special session of the City Council, and was aimed at taking the decision on whether to retain the controversial technology in place out of the mayor’s hands.

  “The experts seem to think it’s a useful tool,” Ald. Bill Conway said. “Our constituents want that. Clearly a lot of my colleagues want to make sure we can keep it and find a way to do that.”

  According to the measure, Supt. Larry Snelling would ultimately have the final say over whether to keep the technology in place, with a contract set to expire this month with SoundThinking, the company who maintains the network.

Conehead's allies are spouting provable lies in their effort to kill this thing:

• While the company claims a  97% accuracy rate across all customers, but Chicago officials have argued that the technology’s alerts “rarely produce evidence of a gun-related crime, rarely give rise to investigatory stops, and even less frequently lead to the recovery of gun crime-related evidence,” according to a report from the Chicago Office of Inspector General.

The joke among the CPD, especially Districts with high incidents of gunfire, is that ShotSpotter is the "most expensive shell-casing finder in existence." We've personally been on the scene of dozens of shootings where the camera room (assisted by ShotSpotter maps) literally walked officers over to shell casings in alleys, on street corners, in vacant lots covered in tall grass, even snow banks.

If you want to argue that the tens of millions of dollars spent to save the lives of around 100 people a year would be better spent elsewhere, you aren't going to get much of an argument from us - those 100 people are usually useless gangbangers, dope dealers and assorted fiends that wouldn't be missed. But making up stories doesn't do your credibility nay favors.

Speaking of favors, do yourself one and head over to the HeyJackass.com merchandise site to check out the new "Walkie-Talkie on a Stick" t-shirts. It helps defray their operating costs.