ShotSpotter Keeps Listening After Contracts Expire
southsideweekly.com
southsideweekly.com
The shootings are usually gang related, not at the police, so I don't see how your theory of heightened policing causes a loop.
The best way to protect the innocent civilians in the area is to increase surveillance and police presence.
Removing police presence is a disservice to the people who are victims of the gang violence in the area. Those people are the ones who call the police and want them there.
Only if you remove the police in areas do you get a feedback loop (no protection, so you join a gang for protection, which leads to more gang violence)
gangs make money by selling drugs. they use that money to buy guns.
they then have turf wars over where they can sell drugs.
that leads to shootings which strike innocent civilians.
what do you suggest the police do? allow those gangs to sell the drugs and kill each other and other innocent bystanders?
also this thread is about whether they should monitor shootings...
I am not proposing to do anything. I just described a possible mechanism for how additional policing can lead to additional incarceration, aside from homicide and attempted murders.
That being said, there has been abuse with them. Police pushing to classify ambiguous sounds as shots to justify their actions.
However, I’m not convinced that things like shootings and murder is something that’s being enforced less in other areas of the city as you are probably going to end up in a hospital or discovered either way. You might think it would be more likely to be reported in other areas where the community generally supports the police or has more access to healthcare. So I think it’s totally logical and reasonable to install these tools where the most murders and shootings occur and to have a higher police presence there to try and reduce them.
The police don't use this tool to reduce shootings on the south side. It's debatable whether this tool is even capable of that, but regardless that is certainly not what the police have done or intend to do with it.
Chicago police are a menace to my community and any power or tool they have been given they use primarily to harm and intimidate. Regardless of what the tool could do, or is intended to do, the history of CPD here is very clear.
That murdered person would have been discovered anyways.
A quicker response could mean the difference between someone surviving and someone bleeding out.
[1] https://council.seattle.gov/2023/11/13/police-chiefs-critica...
But like you said, if they just detect loud noise, that’s a problem.
[0] https://eu.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/2018/01/11/ju...
[1] https://www.thetrace.org/2021/08/chicago-police-shotspotter-...
Because (right or wrong) people protested ShotSpotter and the city agreed to stop using it. But they keep using it.
In any case, I believe the anti-ShotSpotter advocates not only assert that SS is cost-ineffective, but that its alerts lead to increased escalation:
> There was another study that found that the police, in areas where they know ShotSpotter alerts happen, tend to arrive more amped up and ready to jump out and engage. And in Chicago, this has had repercussions. Most recently, there was a case where a ShotSpotter alert went off, and it was unclear whether it was a gunshot or a firework. But the police arrived. They saw a man in his front yard, and they opened fire on him immediately. Fortunately, they didn’t hit him. And it turned out that it was just a firework. It was not a gunshot. The man did not have a gun.
https://slate.com/business/2024/02/shotspotter-chicago-cance...
https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/video/cpd-officer-responding...
I don't think its wrong to combat the shotspotter, but looking from the outside in it's just such a bizarre situation that US cops will kill people no matter what. Its very much like trying to do things against swatting, except doing how its handled in the rest of the world by not killing random civilians just because a crime was phoned in.
> The city paid out $639 million in police-related judgments and settlements between 2012 and the end of 2021, but only budgeted for $329 million in that span
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2022/11/03/whats-the-full-cos...
Even worse, a company exists to place sensors around a city to monitor gunshots. Observability platform for gunshots.
I'd say... the issue isn't with ShotSpotter, but the fact that the average citizen can carry guns.
I remember how, as a tourist, I just needed to sign a paper and pay some bucks to shoot with a gun.
Sure, most people with a gun don’t kill anyone. But the fact is, some people will. Prohibiting access is by far the best means of preventing those tragedies before they happen. High price to pay? Sure. But saving lives is worth it.
From the CDC: "Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million, in the context of about 300,000 violent crimes involving firearms in 2008."
> Prohibiting access is by far the best means of preventing those tragedies before they happen.
Sure, just like providing food to starving people is the best way of helping them. Unfortunately, things are rarely so simple and black-and-white, right?
That's citing the maximum of the CDC estimate; the low end of that same estimate paints a more sobering picture.
If you take the lower end of the estimate, another way of saying it would be "nearly 40% of the interactions involving this product are used illegally." We strongly regulate things that have a much smaller chance of causing harm than firearms.
> Sure, just like providing food to starving people is the best way of helping them. Unfortunately, things are rarely so simple and black-and-white, right?
Your argument here is, what - it's not "so simple and black-and-white" to provide food to the hungry? I happen to think it is that simple, and black-and-white: there is no good reason that anyone on this planet goes hungry. We have more than enough resources to go around. I find any suggestion to the contrary to be deeply morally abhorrent.
I wouldn't take the lower end of the estimate, because most defensive firearms uses are not reported. Firearms are also already highly regulated, yet a number of illicit use still occurs. By your logic, we need fewer firearms regulations to tip the balance.
I don't understand what you are proposing that hasn't already been tried, done, or is completely impractical. Banning things, especially an empowering technology, has never worked. It is better to decentralize and distribute that power - in this case, it is a political power - fairly and equally among all people.
Oh, sure. Why not.
> banning things has never worked
I can think of at least one high-profile counter-example to this, specifically with guns, within living memory.
I’m done arguing with you; there’s no sense arguing with people who think that gun violence is just a political football. I pray you are never the victim of your preferred policies.
Which genocidal dictatorship are you thinking of which banned guns? Doesn't matter, because the idea is entirely stupid to begin with.
The tools are the problem, the people wielding the tools are always the problem.
If we take your argument to its logical conclusion - why have any laws or regulations at all? Such arguments are silly.
This simple and obvious fact "disarms" any gun "control" arguments.
Fundamentally, if you made it to 21 without messing up badly enough to be denied CCW you're probably not going to be a bad guy later.