Complete this form for your organization or yourself to be included in our list of supporters of the letter addressing the Mayor that reads as follows.
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“I stand with the residents of Chicago that want less taxpayer dollars spent on surveillance tools and more on housing, healthcare, mental health, youth outreach, jobs, and quality infrastructure; I urge the City of Chicago to cancel its contract with ShotSpotter.”
– Brandon Johnson, March 2022
Mayor Johnson,
With less than a month until Chicago’s contract with ShotSpotter expires, we call on you to keep your campaign commitment and cancel this contract by not extending or renewing after February 16th and ending the City’s relationship with SoundThinking.
ShotSpotter does not and cannot create safety in Chicago. It does not and cannot prevent or solve the issue of gun violence. More than just being a waste of city resources, the use of ShotSpotter results in deployments that are dangerous for Black and brown community members who historically have been killed, tortured, disappeared, and terrorized by CPD officers. At best, in the rare instances in which the technology accurately identifies the sounds of gunfire, ShotSpotter can only send police out after shots have been fired. It does nothing to prevent gun violence from happening in the first place. Effective violence prevention comes from well-resourced and connected communities, and ShotSpotter cuts residents out.
We reject the idea that ShotSpotter, with its 9% accuracy rate Chicago, is an adequate response to gun violence and that removing the technology would be worse than continuing its use. The overwhelming majority of ShotSpotter alerts turn up nothing, and every ShotSpotter alert puts Black and brown residents at risk of a dangerous encounter with police. As the City of Chicago Office of Inspector General found, the use of ShotSpotter increases the use of stop-and-frisk policing, an unconstitutional and harmful practice, when officers respond to these alerts. Chicago cannot and should not continue to invest a single penny more in this faulty, dangerous technology. Every penny invested in surveillance tools demonstrates a lack of confidence in community-led solutions to safety.
Since the summer of 2021, when this campaign was launched, thousands of conversations with residents across Chicago have affirmed what you and we already know: residents believe that we need to put more funds into health care, education, housing, infrastructure, quality jobs, and community spaces, and less into carceral systems to create a city where everyone can thrive.
These are the values you and your mayoral campaign represented – keep your commitment and cancel the contract.
Signed,
Lucy Parsons Labs
Cannabis Equity IL Coalition
Liberate Ward 46
Action Center on Race and the Economy (ACRE)
Mientras Haya Amor Hay Esperanza
United Northwest Side
Chicago United Solidarity Project (CUSP)
Asian Americans Advancing Justice | Chicago
Black Youth Project 100 (BYP100)
American Friends and Service Committee
Equiticity
Clean Air Club
The #LetUsBreathe Collective
Ghar Archive
Endless Summer Blooms
Chicago Desi Youth Rising
Brighton Park Neighborhood Council
GoodKidsMadCity
The People’s 32nd
Salon Kawakib
Sexpectations
Ziba Market
Únete La Villita
FTP - Chicago
Action Now
Southsiders Organized for Unity and Liberation (SOUL)
Grassroots Collaborative
Justice Cream
Liberation Library
Axis Lab
Alternatives
Loyola Alliance of Socialists
(SM) Edits LLC
Collaborative for Community Wellness (CCW)
40th Ward Workers United
Gage Park Latinx Council
Northside Action for Justice
ANSWER Coalition
Circles & Ciphers
Radical Public Health
Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts
Rogers Park People's Survival Program
Practical Magic Healing
Generative Chaos
Jews 4 Justice DePaul
JELLY
Jewish Council On Urban Affairs (JCUA)
The Southwest Collective
People's Response Network
Policing in Chicago Research Group
Ward 44 Neighbors for Community and Justice
Chicago Votes Action Fund
Anakbayan Chicago
25th Ward IPO
Rad Rogers Park
PO Box Collective
35th Ward Alder's Office
Chicago Torture Justice Center
Tech Workers for Palestine Chicago
Alliance of Filipinos for Immigrant Rights and Empowerment (AFIRE)
Students for a Democratic Society at UIC
Students for Justice in Palestine Chicago
Boeing Arms Genocide Campaign
Asian American Midwest Progressives
Organized Communities Against Deportations (OCAD)
People's Law Office
Resource Generation Chicago
National Public Housing Museum Workers United
Malcolm X Grassroots Movement-Chicago
Bric-a-Brac Records/The Brewed
Smack dab Chicago
Blackroots Alliance
Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (CAARPR)
National Lawyers Guild: Chicago Chapter
Alliance for Community Services
Students for Justice in Palestine at UIC
Lincoln Square Ravenswood Solidarity Network
33rd Ward Working Families
invisible 2 invincible
Nikkei Uprising
Edgewater Mutual Aid Network
Organizing White Men for Collective Liberation - Chicago Chapter
Alliance for Community Services
Better Streets Chicago Action Fund
SoapBox Productions and Organizing
Todo Para Todos
Hot Potato Hearts
Wild Onion Play
Chalo!
Black Skrippa Brigade
Albany Park Organizing Committee
Chicago Community Bond Fund
Arab American Action Network (AAAN)
SJP UChicago
Love & Struggle Photos
Chicago Dissenters
Animal Rights Collective of Chicago
CareNotCops
Alder Carlos Ramirez Rosa (35th ward)
Alder Byron Sigcho Lopez (25th ward)
Alder Michael Rodriguez (22nd ward)
Alder Leni Manaa-Hoppenworth (48th ward)
Alder Daniel La Spata (1st ward)
Alder Maria Hadden (49th ward)
Alder Jessie Fuentes (26th ward)
Alder Andre Vasquez (40th ward)
Alder Matt Martin (47th ward)
Alder Angela Clay (46th ward)
and 687 individuals
