A girl heading to work on Wednesday morning found the physique of a murdered boy mendacity subsequent to her automobile in Washington Park, prompting a murder investigation that when once more raises questions in regards to the metropolis’s lack of gunfire detection capabilities.
The lady known as 911 round 7:55 a.m. after discovering the kid, believed to be between 11 and 13 years previous, on a parking pad behind the 6000 block of South Prairie Avenue. Officers arrived to seek out the kid lifeless from a gunshot wound to the chest. The lady’s car had bullet injury, too, indicating the boy was seemingly murdered the place he was discovered.
The lady instructed police she heard gunfire in a single day, however the metropolis’s 911 name middle obtained no stories of photographs fired within the space. Nevertheless, at about 2:48 a.m., roughly 5 hours earlier than the boy was discovered, a police officer reported listening to gunfire north of the Grand Crossing (third) District station at 7040 South Cottage Grove Avenue, a couple of mile from the capturing scene. That officer searched the neighborhood however didn’t find any victims or proof.
CPD later recovered at the very least 20 shell casings on the homicide scene. As of Wednesday night, the boy remained unidentified.
The 6000 block of South Prairie was monitored across the clock by ShotSpotter, the town’s gunfire detection system, till Mayor Brandon Johnson ended Chicago’s contract with the corporate one yr in the past. With out that community, the town’s emergency middle depends solely on 911 callers and officers’ observations to detect shootings.
Ald. Jeanette Taylor (twentieth) represents the block the place the boy was discovered. She questioned ShotSpotter’s effectiveness when the system got here up for a contract renewal in April 2024.
“I stay in a ward which has benefited, but additionally ShotSpotter has been problematic. If anyone is aware of the place my workplace is, it’s proper off the expressway, and I can depend the variety of instances on my arms and ft that the police have confirmed up and it’s been the backfire from the expressway,” Taylor stated, in keeping with Block Membership Chicago. “And so if we’re going to spend cash on one thing, let or not it’s one thing that really works, or one thing that we are able to gather clear knowledge on.”
Later within the yr, when the Metropolis Council voted on a measure that may give CPD Supt. Larry Snelling the authority to enter into a brand new contract with ShotSpotter with out Johnson’s involvement, Taylor didn’t present as much as vote. However, she instructed reporters that she would have voted to offer Snelling the facility if she had proven up. Hers would have been the thirty fourth vote in favor of the measure, precisely sufficient to override a Johnson veto. As an alternative, it handed with solely 33 votes.
About this sequence
At 12:01 a.m. on September 23, 2024, Chicago formally ended its use of ShotSpotter, the gunfire detection system that operated within the metropolis’s most violence-plagued neighborhoods. The expertise offered Chicago police with exact alerts about gunfire, usually right down to actual road addresses or particular spots like alleys, sidewalks, and gangways.
Mayor Brandon Johnson pressed forward with the shutdown regardless of pleas from most aldermen, many residents, victims’ advocates, and even his personal police superintendent, who needed to maintain it in place.
On this web page, CWBChicago tracks instances the place folks have been discovered shot in areas previously coated by ShotSpotter—incidents the place the system might have performed an important position in offering a well timed response, particularly when no 911 calls have been made or callers gave obscure or inaccurate particulars about gunfire places.
Editor’s be aware: A case beforehand listed as #13 has been eliminated as of Could 21, 2025, after the Cook dinner County Medical Examiner decided the person died by suicide in a fall from top.
