Ald. Brian Hopkins explains how ShotSpotter gunshot detection technology saves lives

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Good morning. Yeah, good morning, John. And I just thought we're having an interesting

segue on your show from COVID shots into gunshots. How about it? But if I may, just really quickly

before we get into, you know, the segment that I'm calling in for, I just want to quickly respond

to a couple of your callers who commented on their bad reaction that they had in the past

to the COVID vaccine, because I am one of those people. I've had several shots and every time I

get it, you know, the side effects, the fever, I feel awful for a couple of days. So I just want

to let people know there's a new alternative out there. It's called Novavax. It's an alternative

to the Pfizer and the Moderna.

products that we're all familiar with. I got mine, zero side effects. That's the only thing

stopping you from getting your updated booster. You can get it at CVS, Walgreens, a couple other

places. Skip over Pfizer, skip over Moderna, ask for Novavax, and I guarantee you, you will not

experience those unpleasant side effects. Dr. Koppen mentioned that last time we spoke to him

on Tuesday. Second Ward Alderman and advocate for getting a vaccine, Brian Hopkins,

on the line. You are also the chair of the Public Safety Committee at the Chicago City Council,

right? I am indeed, yes. And at 10 o'clock Monday morning, there's going to be a hearing by your

committee on ShotSpotter. Just tell us what ShotSpotter is and how it works, Alderman.

Sure. It's a system of audio detection devices mounted on rooftops, utility poles,

places you've probably driven right by and never noticed. They're very small, unobtrusive,

smaller than even a cellular tower. And they work by triangulating the sound of gunfire.

They're able to pinpoint the location of shots being fired to actually within a couple of feet.

It's remarkably accurate, depending on the external factors, echoes off buildings and

things like that. And there's a human factor involved where the audio footprint is analyzed

by a human being in a control room.

And they verify that it was, in fact, a gunshot. And they're able to impose it over a GPS map of

the area and actually pinpoint the location. And within seconds, all of this happens. And Chicago

police are informed that gunfire was detected at address XYZ. And they're sent on their way

to investigate. What's the controversy? I know the answer to this question a little bit myself,

but just talk about why this isn't uniformly embraced.

Well, I think the defund the police crowd, generally speaking, they don't like anything

that helps police and hinders criminals. I don't know how else to say it. It puzzles me that anyone

would want criminals to get away with committing crimes, you know, wouldn't want police to have

the tools that they need to apprehend criminals. But there is a movement out there to not only

defund the police, but to defund the criminals. And I think the defund the police crowd, generally

speaking, they don't want criminals to get away with committing crimes, you know, wouldn't want police

to get away with committing crimes. But there is a movement out there to not only defund the police,

but to render them ineffective, to impose limitations on what they're allowed to do.

And every time we talk about new technology, there's that reaction, including right now,

we're talking about new technology that can detect people trying to smuggle guns onto L trains

and to notify the police. And again, I don't know why you wouldn't want that. If you're riding the

L and there's a criminal with a gun gets on the train, wouldn't you want the police to know that?

Some people say no, they don't. And the same thing is true with ShotSpotter. If someone is

firing a gun at three o'clock in the morning on the sidewalk in front of your house,

do you want the police to know about it? I think most rational people would say yes,

but there's a segment of society that says no, and they would not want the police to know about it.

So just let it go. I just push back on that logic because it makes no sense to me at all.

Well, so I guess...

I don't know how favorable you will be at this hearing. Some of the critics, though,

say that it tells you where the gun was shot or fired, hopefully, but it doesn't tell you who

did it. And the people tend not to hang around and wait for the police after they fire their gun,

but maybe somebody else is there. It would put the police in the place where the shot

might have been fired, but it might actually put the police in front of somebody who didn't

do the firing. Yeah, and that's a fair criticism with the use of this tool.

Just to give you up to date on some of the statistics we're going to be talking about

Monday, for the first eight months of the year, from January 1st till the end of August,

we had nearly 30,000 shot spotter alerts in the city of Chicago. That's in the territory that

shot spotter covers, which is really, it's only half of the city of Chicago's geography.

So within that half of Chicago, 30,000 times, somebody's got a gun somewhere on the streets

or the sidewalks or the alleyways. And that's a fair criticism. And I think that's a fair criticism.

That's just a staggering number of bullets flying through the air. Now, did all 30,000 of those

incidents result in an arrest, an apprehension, an active investigation? Obviously not. I mean,

it's impossible. The sheer volume of gun activity on the streets of Chicago is so staggering and

so unwieldy. We absolutely cannot treat every single incident of gunfire with the serious

that it deserves. You know, we would need a massive army of police and investigators

in order to do that. And we can't afford that. So, you know, when the critics say

shot spotter doesn't result in enough arrests, yeah, I can't really argue with that. But that's

a function of the vast amount of crime and gun violence that's being committed on our streets.

It's not because we're not trying. It's because...

Do you know how, how did the police, how did the police then determine which,

which spots of shots they should respond to?

Yeah. And that's, that's a procedural question. We'll, we'll get into that a little bit at the

hearing on Monday too. We prioritize all of the 911 calls that we get, you know, a similar

phenomena happens with 911 calls and there's so many, you know, and we get into backlog situations

in a given police district where the volume of 911 calls coming in vastly exceeds the number

of police that are available to respond to them. So we have to prioritize and we treat

shot spotter alerts the same way. If there's a corresponding 911 call, if someone, if a

caller is able to describe the shooter, the vehicle that the shooter was in, if they see

a victim bleeding on the sidewalk, all of these things result in a higher priority that's

given to the call. As a matter of fact, in that data we're going to look at, out of the

30,000 shooting incidents, 143 were shot.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

143 actual victims were given aid due to a shot spotter call. So that's 143 times police

showed up after a shot spotter alert, found someone who was struck by gunfire and was

able to render a life-saving aid immediately. So those are 143 people whose, you know, lives

were clearly altered, if not saved by the use of this technology.

Alderman Brian Hopkins, the meeting is at 10 o'clock on Monday morning.

Absolutely.

After you get a more comprehensive review of that, let's visit again next week, Alderman.

I'd be glad to.

Second Ward Alderman, an advocate to get your shot, get the one that you can tolerate, Brian Hopkins.