CHICAGO – A 15-year-old boy was shot in the chest Friday afternoon while standing near a sidewalk in Englewood, Chicago police said.
CPD and fire personnel responded to a call of a person shot in the 1000 block of West Garfield around 2:15 p.m., according to dispatch records. The boy, who suffered one gunshot wound, told officers the shooting happened near 59th Street and Sangamon Street, about a half-mile from where he encountered first responders. He was in good condition at Comer Children’s Hospital.
No shots had been fired in the area around the time he was injured. ShotSpotter, the gunfire detection system, operated in the neighborhood until Mayor Brandon Johnson ended the city’s relationship with the company on September 23.
Officers searched the area of 59th and Sangamon for a crime scene but found nothing. ShotSpotter would have been a valuable tool because it could have narrowed the search area to within a few feet of where the shots were fired. If the boy had mistaken the location of the shooting, ShotSpotter could also have led police to the correct location. The system could also tell them if there have been no shots fired in the area, so they can redirect the investigation.
Ald. Stephanie Coleman (16th), chair of the City Council’s Black Caucus, represents the neighborhood. She was part of the two-thirds majority of the City Council that tried to keep the ShotSpotter network active without Johnson’s support.
Coleman joined several of her colleagues and community leaders in October to announce that company leaders had offered $2.5 million toward the costs of bringing ShotSpotter back online. Under a deeply discounted contract extension proposed by ShotSpotter in September, the money could cover about three months of service.
“We are both saddened and disappointed with where we stand with any sound detection system that could help CPD save lives in communities like Englewood, Auburn Gresham, Far Southeast Side, North Lawndale and the South and West Sides. impacts black and brown people,” says Coleman said at the announcement.
So far, the Johnson administration has not taken up the offer to business leaders.
About this series
On September 23, 2024 at 12:01 a.m., Chicago ended its relationship with ShotSpotter, a gunfire detection system deployed in 12 of the city’s most violence-affected neighborhoods.
Mayor Brandon Johnson stubbornly refused to reconsider his decision to dismantle ShotSpotter, even as the vast majority of councilors, many citizens, victims’ advocates and his hand-picked police commissioner asked for it to remain in place.
This reporting series, called “Brandon’s Bodies,” seeks to document shooting victim cases and police investigations that could have benefited from gunshot detection technology.
The general criteria for inclusion is a gunshot victim found outdoors in a location previously served by ShotSpotter, with either (1) no accompanying 911 calls about gunfire, or (2) calls about gunfire in a general area that is not lead to the timely location of the victim.
