Johnson administration tells Chicago City Council finding ShotSpotter replacement could take 8 more months

Chicago City Council members on Tuesday continued to put pressure on the Johnson administration to replace the city's ShotSpotter gunshot detection system, as a top city official revealed it could be eight more months to get it done.

Mayor Brandon Johnson shut down the ShotSpotter system in September 2024, and at the time he vowed to replace it with a new gunshot detection system.

On Tuesday, the City Council Public Safety Committee held its third meeting in the past month to ask the Johnson administration why it's taking so long to find a replacement for ShotSpotter.

Alders were frustrated with a lack of answers to those questions at a meeting last month, and a second meeting last week was called off before it could begin, when not enough alders were present to establish quorum.

Some alders said the continued delay in replacing ShotSpotter is putting lives in danger.

"It's been over 20 months since it was decommissioned, and the residents of the 10th Ward and the city do not feel any safer," said Ald. Peter Chico (10th).

Shortly after shutting down ShotSpotter in September 2024, the mayor's office issued a "request for information" for a new citywide gunshot detection system. The city then issued a "request for proposals" from potential vendors in February 2025.

Nine companies submitted bids for new systems by the deadline in April 2025, but no contracts have been awarded yet.

For the first time on Tuesday, city officials provided an estimated timeline for when a new gunshot detection system might be picked. Chief Procurement Officer Sharia Roberts told the Public Safety Committee that it typically takes two years to complete complex contracts like this through a request for proposals process, meaning a final contract is not expected until February 2027.

Ald. Brian Hopkins (2nd), who chairs the Public Safety Committee argued waiting eight more months is far too long.

"I think it could possibly be as early as August if they really wanted to expedite it and move forward. They don't have to wait till February. That's the closest we've gotten to a target date, but that's more than two years after ShotSpotter being decommissioned," he said. "This is excessive. "These are excessive delays, and they're harmful delays, and I would really like to see a renewed sense of urgency from the Procurement Department. They should wrap this up in 90 days, max."

During the meeting, alders in support of the technology pushed back on a recent study by the University of Chicago that found police response times improved after ShotSpotter's removal.

However, researchers have noted their study did not conclude that response times improved because of ShotSpotter's removal, and critics of that research have said it does not give a full picture of the impact of gunshot detection technology.

The discussion also highlighted how the city does not own data that was collected by ShotSpotter's parent company, SoundThinking, prompting concern on how to properly evaluate the system.

Council members calling for the selection process to be sped up argued the issue is urgent as summer approaches and an expected uptick in violence typically happens.

Meantime, opponents of the technology said the city should not rush to spend millions on a system that prompts questions over effectiveness.

"I think that if we are going to be investing millions of dollars in a technology, we have to have clarity on what is it that we want this technology to do, and if this technology is proven to do that, and we were not doing that in there," said Ald. Rossana Rodriguez Sanchez (33rd).