A 29-year-old woman was found shot to death in a West Side alley Friday morning, becoming at least the 79th shooting victim that might have received a quicker response from police and paramedics had Mayor Brandon Johnson not disconnected Chicago’s gunshot detection network 18 months ago.
The woman was found dead around 6:30 a.m. behind the 200 block of North Kilbourn. The person who discovered her told police they thought they heard gunfire about 30 minutes earlier, but they never called 911.
One even called.
“No shots were fired anywhere in the area,” a police dispatcher confirmed over the radio. “I came back at four in the morning and we had nothing.”
“Another one for ShotSpotter,” an officer noted.
The Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office said the woman died of a gunshot wound to the flank. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
Data maintained by HeyJackass.com shows that so far this year, 26% of gunshot victims in Chicago have died from their injuries. But among those who received delayed emergency response because no one called 911 and ShotSpotter was no longer there to compensate, the death rate jumps to almost 56% – more than double the citywide figure.
Johnson terminated the city’s contract with SoundThinking, ShotSpotter’s parent company, in September 2024, despite objections from two-thirds of the City Council, the city’s police commissioner and, according to polls, about 70% of Chicago residents.
The councilor whose district covers the alley where the woman was killed was among the minority who supported that decision.
Ald. Jason Ervin (28th) was among only about a third of city council members who supported Johnson’s initiative to cut ties with the Gunshot Detection Service. Ervin argued that ShotSpotter’s presence prevented residents from coming into contact with police.
“There are fewer people calling 911 now. Fewer people have come to CAPS meetings when we need them. And guess where it’s happening? On the south and west sides of Chicago,” Ervin said last year. “We need to start playing chess instead of checkers because this kind of technology continues to push the community away from what needs to be done, which is police involvement.”
Before the city broke the contract, ShotSpotter’s sensors could automatically alert police to gunfire regardless of whether a resident answered a phone. Without it, victims can lie injured or dying while the clock runs on a response that depends entirely on a call that may never come.
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, despite the fact that the vast majority of councilors, many citizens, victims’ advocates and his hand-picked police inspector requested that the ShotSpotter 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 regarding gunfire, or (2) calls regarding gunfire in a general area that did not result in the timely location of the victim.
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