meetings, 2023 to 2027, pursuant to the Chicago city
council Rules of Order and procedure rule, 49, the
sergeant-at-arms sets forth, the following rules of conduct
to be followed during the public comment period and the
duration of all committee and City Council, meetings,
profane vulgar, threatening abusive or disruptive language
is not permitted. Demeaning discriminatory or harassing
behavior and speech directed towards others is not
permitted. Disruptive behavior, including disruptive or
disrespectful content. During others presentations is not
permitted, banners flyers, or signage are not permitted
backpacks, large bags, and sharp objects are not permitted.
Clear bags, not tinted in color that do not exceed 12 by 12
by 6. In will be permitted in our subject to search health
food and beverages including in metal canisters are not
permitted.
Cell phones must be placed on silent prior to entering the
meeting room. Individuals must remain seated, public
comment speakers are permitted to stand only when providing
public comment, small handheld devices may be used only
while seated and the user must refrain from interfering
with the view or hearing of other individuals, individuals
or groups failing to adhere to. These rules will be asked
to see such disruptive conduct and failure to comply. Will
result in there being subject to removal from the meeting
by the sergeant-at-arms.
City of Chicago city, council rules of conduct for public
meetings, 2023 to 2027, pursuant to the Chicago city
council Rules of Order and procedure rule, 49, the
at Arms sets forth, the following rules of conduct to be
followed during the public comment period and the duration
of all committee and City Council, meetings, profane
vulgar, threatening abusive or disrupt.
Language is not permitted. Demeaning discriminatory or
harassing behavior and speech directed towards. Others is
not permitted disruptive behavior, including disruptive or
disrespectful conduct during others presentations is not
permitted, banners flyers, or signage are not permitted
backpacks, large bags, and sharp objects are not permitted.
Clear bags, not tinted in color that do not exceed 12 by 12
by 6. In will be permitted in our subject to search health
food and beverages including in metal canisters are not
permitted cell phones. Must be placed on silent prior to
entering the meeting room. Individuals must remain seated,
public comment speakers are permitted to stand only when
providing public comment, small handheld devices may be
used only while seated and the user must refrain from
interfering with the view or hearing of other individuals,
individuals or groups failing to adhere to. These rules,
will be asked to see such disruptive conduct and failure to
comply.
I will result in their being subject to removal from the
meeting by the sergeant-at-arms.
City of Chicago city, council rules of conduct for public
meetings, 2023 to 2027, pursuant to the Chicago city
council Rules of Order and procedure rule, 49, the
sergeant-at-arms sets forth, the following rules of conduct
to be followed during the public comment period and the
duration of all committee and City Council, meetings,
profane vulgar, threatening abusive or disruptive language
is not permitted. Demeaning discriminatory or harassing
behavior and speech directed towards others is not
permitted disruptive behavior, including disruptive or
disrespectful conduct during others presentations is not
permitted, banners flyers, or signage are not permitted
backpacks, large bags, and sharp objects are not permitted.
Clear bags, not tinted in color that do not exceed 12 by 12
by 6. In will be permitted in our subject to search all
food and beverages including in metal canisters are not
permitted.
Cell phones must be placed on silent prior to entering the
meeting room. Individuals must remain seated, public
comment speakers are permitted to stand only when providing
public comment, small handheld devices may be used only
while seated and the user must refrain from interfering
with the view or hearing of other individuals, individuals
or groups failing to adhere to. These rules will be asked
to see such disruptive conduct and failure to comply. Will
result in there being subject to removal from the meeting
by the sergeant-at-arms.
The hour of 12:30 having arrived pursuant to notice, the
committee will be called to order by my V.
Vice chairman Alderman. Talia Farrell
chairman Hopkins, president.
Vice chair. Jansy.
Chairman tell the Pharaohs president. Vice chair Robinson.
Alderman Hall.
Alderman Mitchell.
Alderman, Chico.
Alderwoman Lee.
Alderwoman Gutierrez.
Alderman Lopez.
Alderman, Curtis alderwoman Taylor Alderman Mosley.
Alderwoman, tomorrows.
All the woman to Baris.
Alderman, CIO Lopez.
All the women for wendays.
Alderman Irving.
Alderman, Cardona.
Alderman pisado.
Alderwoman Nugent.
Alderman Vasquez.
Alderman. Nala.
Alderman. Kitson
Alderman Gardner.
Alderwoman claim.
Alderman. Martin.
Alderwoman manah hoppenworth.
All the women had in.
All the women, Silver State.
We have 15 members present. We do have a quorum.
Thank you, Vice chair. We also have a rule 59 requests from
Alderman Irving. And, uh, anyone else besides Alderman,
Ervin had a real 59.
Alderman Vasquez.
Can. And I'm sorry, who was the third?
Wells Alderman, Vasquez chairman.
can I have a motion uh to allow for remote participation
from the 3, Al
moved by Alderman Mosley hearing no objections, so ordered
Uh, we will proceed with uh, public testimony. Uh, you all
know the rules and you have 3 minutes. Uh, the first
witness is Miss Lawrence. Uh, Miss Lawrence are you
present?
Good morning all. And I want to start off with thanking all
the Alder people who stood up for us with the spot shotter
shotter and stand it on our side and voted against it, we
appreciate that. So, I'll start off with that. Now, let me
just jump jump right in Illinois, lawyer now presented by
the Illinois.
State Bar Association.
Watchdog organization found that Chicago police officers
have routinely failed to document instances of traffic
stops. That do not end in arrests or charges.
How do I know that? Because we are victims of that.
And we have a problem with the police not doing that
because it also talks about superintendent. Larry Snelling
reporting this past June that traffic stops in Chicago were
down by approximately 87,000 stops from last year. But what
they find troubling is that these numbers are increased,
then what was stated on here. So they're saying to be some
conflict of information that's going on here, but again
lawyers Bar Association y'all. Next uh CPD is intentionally
not recording traffic stops so that they can claim. They're
fixing the problem. Well, let me tell you about an illegal
driver. That came down my street tearing up cars. Bam, Bam,
Bam. Bam until the wheel fell off.
Uh, yeah. Did he get arrested? Absolutely not. But then,
it comes to Citizens that you all are doing that, and the
numbers here, reported that black citizens are the ones who
are affected, most by this, this is another issue. Clear
path, what a joke because clear path, No 1 respect, you
send in your issues to them and you hear nothing back.
These uh, clear path people who supposed to be in charge of
this, I believe that is superintendent Snelling. Yeah.
Well,
Come on. What's up with that?
We need to get our safety in our neighborhoods and we need
to be heard when we are sending in complaints problems that
need to be addressed. They're not happening. So what are
you all going to do about that? Our safety as well as
traffic on these streets, by illegal drivers who don't have
insurance and who's not doing any good to our neighborhoods
but making it worse so we can complain about what's
happening already but you all Amplified that and that needs
to be addressed seriously because I'm telling you, we are
flipping read rather? You like it or not. We're flipping
flipping read because this party has really done damage to
the black communities, even more. So, so you're going to
see our works.
Uh, the next public speaker is Jenni Schaefer Jenni
Schaefer.
Hi, my name is Jenni Schaefer. I'm a district council
member in the 19th Police District. We've been talking with
our community about the important role of the workforce,
allocation study and helping. Uh, our our department,
employee data-driven strategies to, effectively and
efficiently, use their resources. This is not only a
priority of our district council and our community members,
but leaders of the city including independent monitoring
team and the inspector General's office, have all stressed,
the need for this type of work to be completed.
As, you know, the city council also passed an ordinance in
December requiring, a Workforce, allocation study, be
completed.
The ordinance, spelled out very specifically requirements,
including that, within 90 days, the department will enter
an agreement with a third-party to conduct the Staffing.
Analysis it is septembar, 9 months later and we still do
not have all the parties signed on to that contract.
Additionally, the ordinance states that the department will
provide quarterly updates on the progress of the work. The
latest update was due september 1st, and we are still
waiting to receive that. Given that it is a widely agreed
upon by community and city leaders and asking that this
committee cam recommit to prioritizing this work and
ensuring that progress on the workforce. Allocation study
happens in a more timely manner, moving forward.
Including that we get the promise update from CPD before the
end of next week. Thank you.
The next public speaker is Tuan Sims.
Can you hold it?
Is going at the B what you call.
Um, good afternoon, committee, how y'all doing? Good
afternoon. So, um, I wonder if the city of Chicago knew
that they was electing a mayor that promised to erode,
Public Safety. And to the point, where we at, where we at
right now.
So on the 22nd I suppose Shots by the was taking out of the
city.
Leaving black Americans once again in the dark leaving
black Americans. Once again, subject to that fate,
And everybody in this room like Fuentes who having a
conversation laughing because we a joke.
We a joke.
Hey.
Walter Bernett I'm from your neighborhood. I'm from here on
the projects 44 years old. Remember me? You know you know
old that's standing across the street that's my uncle. You
know what I am.
But we a joke.
I just said in the meeting they talking about 1901, we a
joke. Y'all. And y'all gonna have us dead and gone but
Bernett, they going to give you the zoning.
A very powerful position a position to allow for black
Americans to have work here in the city.
But still, we not going to speak about that. I'm not but
we're a joke.
And the City of Chicago, Black Americans are a joke and our
safety is a joke, and our health is a joke, and our
children are a joke, and we a joke.
For Wentz, don't take a seat. Keep laughing. Keep talking.
Please let's go.
Larry Snell and said this, he said we got to keep our eye
on the ball. We got to keep our eye on the ball and still
we have hundreds of hundreds of black Americans shot and
killed in the last 3 months, but we're a joke and y'all
gonna take shot spotter.
William joke.
My 16 year old child is a joke. My 3 year old, yasuke is a
joke. I'm a joke at a 44 year old. Y'all all jokes.
Every black American in this city is a joke.
You said something against like black Americans? We not
against police.
We see the city going into darkness, a road. And y'all let
the legals come here. Y'all, let people come here and a
young, and it was a little girl that came up missing
yesterday. Her mother took her, but what about the X amount
of other children that came up, missing that y'all haven't
made headlines?
Y'all haven't made headlines out there but y'all going to
show that black woman to be a demon. Ain't y'all cuz she
abducted her child her child. But what about the black
children that's been abducted? The 64,000 black women?
That's been taken. They y'all ain't made a headline out.
There. We a joke.
Y'all took Shots by the so y'all could last so y'all could
show y'all got the power.
Thompson. If I can come to your crib, I can send them to
your crib when that start happen, and I send them first to
you.
I send them first to your home when they start shooting,
when it when it get real dark. And Bleak for us, I'm gonna
send them your house first and every representative in this
house in this room house first so that they can start
extracting taken.
Click start hurting.
So you will feel it first and then it'll trickle down to us
that nobody's because we're joking.
I would.
and I'm not saying that I'm
I'm for the violence. I'm against it. But y'all not against
the violence against us.
Y'all don't care about us. We're a joke.
The next speaker is Jessica Jackson.
Um, good morning.
Okay, Sams.
Let's make this clear.
Okay, let's make this clear in terms of spots, fire.
Every just check the box. Yeah, that
Every let's look at the voting thing, right? But that day,
every white aldermen voted in favor of keeping spots fire
and the spot. Whatever in all fairness every white aldermen
voted to keep it, okay?
The Hispanic.
Alderman voted against it. They voted against it.
and then you had your pixel selects of Brandon Johnson
people black alimen that clay
Hall. Janette Taylor Walter Bernette that crew. Jason,
Ervin and them. They messed us up.
I'm not even y'all know, I don't even like with pakkada.
Okay. Yeah but that day. Yeah. But that day. What did he
say? He spoke the most truth in here after that.
Vote. He said,
This is the most hypocrisy I've ever seen.
He said the fact that you all would give
superintendent to Snelling those accolades, and a
resolution like that, then turn around and vote against the
very item that he supports. That's what that man said.
That's what he said. Cuz see unlike the lot of y'all
whether I like a person or not,
It doesn't change the fact that when somebody say something
is true, it's true and you stand on. What's true? What's
true? Is that day, Mayor Johnson rigged that vote like that
so that it was 33. That said, yes, 14 that said, no. He
Janette Taylor to stand down that sage in that Taylor who
on inauguration of Snelling.
Set up there and sang, his praise.
About how they wanted him as the superintendent.
Then Walter Bernett.
The same ultimate, that makes it.
so so clear that every time we talking he hit up and be a
distraction and all that garbage and then that recall
Robinson, who didn't vote at all? Whose mother is a AKA who
stood up that day with that resolution when the akas was
here. So, in all fairness and all fairness. Because that
same weekend that Rosanna Sanchez. They had the shootout
and her neighborhood over there and Irving Park. Soon as
she voted against it soon as she vote. And then that other
Asian Alderman. I don't know how to say her name. Just
someone sitting next to Fuentes, they had violence and her
neighborhood and she keep it down.
The next speaker is George Blakemore.
This man from
Uh, Beverly.
From Beverly.
He made a statement. I don't need spark uh swallow
whatever.
Whatever.
He doesn't have high crime, he doesn't have abandoned
buildings. He doesn't have none, functional parks and
schools.
So he said that he didn't need it and they can't. So if
something wrong with us black people the call that won't
stop crying.
Economic Development.
Help people, good schools, and Parks, inform people
educated people. Enlighten people that are stopped for
crying.
But that is after the crime, have have already been
committed. He missed the Blakemore, brings another
dimension to, you heard those previous speakers they was
for this man. Say he didn't need it.
Now why do black people need it? How I cry the police abuse,
abuse, poor education, no, Economic Development, the parts.
That's the reason why you need it. So sometimes, the
problem black people is you
You your own problem not spot trial. You look in the
mirror,
Look in the mirror. You are your problem and you are your
solution, but try, whatever, you can stop it by demanding.
Good schools, Economic Development by the men from the
police. That is not a crime to be walking while black
talking white black and white black just being black, you
can stop it, but you refused to do it because on the
plantation, the master made a Niger, you got the person
yourself of n***** and become strong, black men and women.
You must keep them how to treat you.
That's the issue when that man from from Beverly got up and
said, I don't need it. Why do you need it?
Why do you Black need it? Because you not doing what you
supposed to do you supposed to be healthy?
Self preservation is the first law of nature. You must.
It's something wrong with you.
The machine, the Democratic machine. Go ahead.
Can you hear these other people's feet and then they say
Mr. George uh, please add alderwoman Gutierrez and
alderwoman Fuentes to the Quorum roll call and add
Alderman, Moore and Alderman, Bernett to the attendance
roll. Call the next speaker is Zoe Lee
People ask me all the time especially since the last 30
days. So what's the plan? And this is for those who've been
asking any man who respects himself understands his role in
society as a protector of the family. The woman that
provided in the backbone of the community must vote red at
the federal level. Why? Because putting another Foreigner
in the White House, who isn't a true black American, who
can't even comfortably speak on. Black American issues, is
not what we need, how can we vote for
Perform a prosecutor to lead this country. When we just
witnessed 2, innocent black men executed within a week as
an attorney and HBCU graduate and AKA neither. She nor
Biden, both lawyers bothered to reach out to Merit Garland
or Christian Clark, the attorney general and Assistant
Attorney General of the United States. That's exactly what
the Department of Justice is for. Meanwhile Democratic
socialists run on the defund police campaign, but look at
what's happening in Chicago Atlanta and LA Police cities
and Facilities being built up under Democratic Leadership.
It's a, it's his, its
I'm just get so mad. It's a, it's a can never at its finest
to truly protect civil protection. In America. We must vote
red. Then we can work on, removing these black, sellouts
and Democratic socialists. Hispanic KKK with the help of
cartel running cities since the pandemic from the local and
and State offices, we must be politically sophisticated
developing agenda and plan of execution. All hands on deck,
this is the moment to stand up, protect our communities and
take control, its 39 days and counting until election. And
we have to go back to moderate. There's no moderation in
politics and its be and it's it's to the extreme.
So, as far as for me and for my people who are following
me, we're voting for Trump.
Are there being no further public speakers who registered
in a timely matter? We will proceed, uh, with the matters
of the day on the agenda, after we add, uh, Alderman
Robinson to the Quorum call. Uh, the first item is the
annual report, uh, and Public Safety from the Inspector.
General Inspector General Deb. Witzburg, is here. She will
present her report and then, uh, open the floor to
questions. Uh, she's prepared to address shot spotter but
also there's many other important points. I would remind
the committee members, um, in her committee report. Uh, so
you are free to ask for, uh, questions on anything that
demands further explanation. Inspector General, thank you,
good afternoon, thank you for having us. I'm Deborah
witzburg. I'm Inspector General for the city of Chicago.
I'm here with tabara Richardson. Who is our Deputy
Inspector General for Public Safety? Um, to start, uh,
Deputy IG Richardson is going to uh, give an overview of
the 2023 annual report from our Public Safety section. This
report to this joint committee is a requirement of the
municipal code.
Code. Um, so we will start there answering any questions
about the annual report and then I'm happy to to talk about
shots about her thereafter.
Thank you.
Okay, good afternoon, everyone, uh, good afternoon,
chairman Hopkins, chairman Talia, Ferrell members of the
Public Safety Committee members of the police and fire
committee and each of you, thank you for having us. Um, as
the Inspector General just said, my name is tabara
Richardson. And I serve as the deputy Inspector General for
Public Safety today, I am here to talk to you about the
awesome work that the public safety section, um, did in
2023.
Um in the annual report, you all will see um what was
published by the public, the section in 2023 um and data
analysis from 2023.
Um because the report is available online. You can go to ig
chicago.org um and the search button if you put um, annual
annual report. It should be the second or third item
listed, it's available there. Um, and then, um, we also
provided the public safety report to you all. Um, so since
you all have that, I will give you a high level. Um,
overview of what is contained there in?
With regards to strategic priorities. The public safety
section has adopted 3. Um strategic priorities to guide his
work. First improving, cpd's administrative and
operational. Competencies second ensuring transparency.
Fairness and consistency in the police accountability
system, and third ensuring that Chicagoans, constitutional
and civil rights are sufficiently and equitably protected.
With regard to our approach. The public safety section
serves these priorities um, through 3 mechanisms first by
conducting audit based, inquiries and reviews second by
inspecting individual closed. Disciplinary investigations
conducted by the civilian office of police accountability
Copa, uh, and the Bureau of internal affairs within CPD via
and third by collecting and analyzing data from CPD and
City resources on policing and the police disciplinary
system. Um, so I'm going to talk about the work that we've
done in those 3 areas. First beginning, with the public
safety sections, audit based, inquiries and reviews. Uh,
last year, the public safety section published, um, 9
products. Well,
including uh,
recommendations to inform and improve. That would actually
be 12 products, but I'm going to go over, um, the audit
based inquiries and reviews at this time.
so, 1 of the products published by the public safety, s
section, uh,
Was with regards to cpd's. Uh requirement um to enforce
cpd's rule against filing. False reports rule 14. Um which
prohibits CPD members. Thank you.
From making a false.
Report written or oral. I'm the truthfulness and
credibility of officers, its foundational to the fair
administration of justice and cpd's Effectiveness as a law
enforcement agency,
CPD Copa, the police board. Everyone has said that an
officer's credibility and truthfulness is Paramount to
their positions. Um, and they have also um, agreed that
officer should be separated when they violate rule 14.
However, um, despite those statements, um, CPD has failed
to consistently separate members with rule, 14, violations.
Um, and so, our recommendation is that, um, the entities do
what they have stated which is separate members, uh, who
have sustained Finance for rule, 14 violations,
Um, and if not in the alternative that you should, make sure
sure that individual CPD members with rule, 14 violations
are assigned, or detail to positions that don't require
them to write reports or testify in court.
Next, I want to talk about the report published by the
public safety section with regard to cpd's enforcement of
members duty to report, misconduct rules, 21, and 22. Uh,
so everyone has an understanding of the history with regard
to the Code of Silence, um, and the fear of retaliation.
With those things in mind, the recommendation is that there
are multiple, um, mechanisms by which CPD members should be
able to report misconduct and those mechanisms actually
exist. They can report, um, misconduct through Copa through
oig, um, through via and specifically through, uh, coprint
and oig anonymously. Additionally, um, there is a CPD
member hotline
Where a CPD member would put in information to verify that
the they are a CPD member but then the information is
Stripped Away. CPD members are allowed to report misconduct
and then they are also given a receipt where they would be
able to verify. If anyone asks did they report the
misconduct? So despite having all of those different ways
by which they can report misconduct which is what we want.
Um,
The rules actually only allow them to report misconduct
through their chain of command. And so I recommendation was
to uh CPD uh to look at their policies and rules to align
them with best practices which would um promote CPD members
reporting misconduct and to also coordinate with the
respective entities um to make sure including um that the
that the consent decree also would allow for anonymous
reporting.
The next report I would like to talk to you all about, um,
is our report published.
Too far. Everything is here.
Um, on cpd's, uh search warrant process.
In 2021, we published 2, inter reports. And last year, we
published a final report that assess the gaps and risks
posed by cpd's past search warrant policies and practices.
Um in January of 2023, uh CPD had a draft um updates to the
search warrant policy. And so ultimately we looked at those
updates and assess whether those updates would address some
of the issues that we observed um within the CPD, search
warrant process specifically as it pertains to. Um,
Negative uh, warrants warrants in which nothing was
recovered. No, 1 was arrested or wrong grades. Um, which
included both, um, search warrants that were executed at
the wrong address or search warrants, that were executed at
the right address, but when you look back at the
information provided to obtain that search warrant, it
didn't necessarily align with the individual or um, the
items that were there.
With that in mind oig found that cpd's revised search
warrant development.
Forum included, check boxes for specific, investigative
steps to be taken in law enforcement specific investigative
tools to be used to verify information on the subject and
Target location of a search warrant. Thus the form has the
potential to help the department. Ensure that affiance,
take sufficient investigative steps prior to the service of
search warrants. Additionally cpd's, anticipated new,
electronic data application, could improve search warrant
record maintenance,
Last year we also looked at cpd's, 911 response time, data,
collection and Reporting. Um, we found that um, only
and 49% of instances was, um,
I'll switch how I say that. So only in 51% of instances the
CPD members record there on scene, arrival time, leaving
49% of the time where there was no data, no information to
say when a CPD member actually um arrived at the scene. Uh,
Accordingly. Um, in order to conduct a complete analysis of
Officer, 911 response times um, systems have to be in place
to um evaluate all critical interview, inter intervals, um,
in the process of
To assess areas of need for a procedural improvements. Um
to identify the drivers of delays in response time. So what
we're saying is ultimately CPD responded saying and I
believe it is in some CPD vehicles that the cad system the
system, um, where they tracked, the time of arrival would
be um GPS in the cad system would work together, however,
that only addresses, the Unseen arrival time as opposed to
when they accept the assignment. When they say they they
are in route and in order to ultimately determine what are
the factors that affect, uh, delays in arrival time, you
have to be able to look at all of those. Um,
The time frames for all each of those intervals.
Next, I want to talk about, um, our report where we
published, um, an explainer on cpd's, use of gang data,
which is now known as a criminal Enterprise information
system or a CIS in 2023. There was, um, policy discussions.
I'm mostly driven by the community commission for Public
Safety and accountability or ccpsa around. Cpd's use of
gang data, we had previously published reports on the
topic. Um, but as far as information, providing information
for information, set sake level setting, providing the
facts um around the history of cpd's, use of the gang
database. We published a report on that topic.
um, as mandated by the consent decree, we also published a
report on the community police mediation pilot program that
is a non-disciplinary um complainant involved mediation. Um
not like the traditional mediation where the investigative
agency um and the accused CPD member would come together.
The qcpd member would um agree that they committed,
whichever specific violations and they would agree to a
certain discipline so not that traditional mediation. Um
but this pilot program um which was launched uh would be
non-disciplinary, it would bring together the complainant
uh and the CPD.
Member uh, with a purpose of allowing the CPD member and the
Community member to gain an understanding of what happened
happened in any particular situation. In order to further,
um, police community relations and address, um, the alleged
allegation
as a part of, uh, oig's review of the community police
mediation pilot program. We identify a number of challenges
and considerations to include, um, that the meeting
providers, should consider the location and time
limitations of community members, and CPD members, when
scheduling mediation, um, for example, altering
Alternatives, such as virtual, um, sessions ultimately. Um,
By the time we review the mediation program, there were
less than 10 that had made it completely through the
program.
Last year we also conducted a follow-up review on
compliance with Chicago's video release policy for use of
force incidents. So after the public safety section and
publishes a report, approximately 18 months later, we may
go back and look at our recommendations look at the
respective entities response. Um, and we will send it uh,
questionnaire to the respective entity to ask. You said you
were going to do a b and c where you went
In that process. And then we publish a report documents and
whether or where they are and doing what they said that
they would do specifically with regard to our follow-up. On
Chicago's video release policy for use of force incidents
oig found, that improvements were made in copas compliance
with the timely release of video footage.
But without the development of binding directives, it
remains to be seen whether those improvements will Outlast
any particular Administration.
Last year, the public safety section also published an
explainer on cpd's budget process this year. We did not ask
ccpsa um ordinance that falls within their purview
and 2023 oig also per the consent decree published a 2022,
annual report, where an investigation of sexual misconduct
allegations against CPD members. Um, and so we published
that report detailing information from 2022 and moving
forward, um, as the oig and the public safety section is
the first and only City entity to achieve and maintain full
compliance with the consent decree. We will still address
that information, but in the form of our annual report,
which we have done, um, in this year's annual report for
2023.
with regards to allegations of sexual misconduct against CPD
members of the 53 investigations, that met the definition
of sexual misconduct per consent, decree paragraph 782 of
those 53. Um,
we found that um, we received notifications for a 25 cases,
so the respective entities are required to provide
oig with notification of those allegations once they are
closed within 10 days. Um, and so we received 25, uh,
notifications which was about 47.2%. Um, and we did not
receive notifications for 28, which was approximately 52.8%
And 2023 Co Copa. Close 38, qualifying sexual misconduct
investigations, which was 11 more than in 2022. And Bia,
closed 15 qualified, qualifying sexual misconduct
investigations, which was 9 more than in 2022. And then of
the 53, qualifying sexual misconduct cases reviewed by oig
in 2023 oig verified that 1 of those cases was referred um
for criminal, prosecution with the Cook County, State's
Attorney's office, and then 1 was referred to an outside
jurisdiction.
So, that is a summary of the 9 reports published by the
public safety section in 2023.
Now, I want to talk to you all about another important
function of the public safety section, which is reviewing
close disciplinary, investigations, conducted by Coppa and
Via
And 2023 we screen 1,289 closed, disciplinary
investigation. Um, 711 of, those were conducted by bia and
5788 were conducted by Coppa.
Of those 1,289 investigation screen. We open 82 of those
investigations for in-depth review.
Of the 82 investigations that we open for in-depth review.
We sent 13 recommendations to reopen. So what does that
mean? Um, it doesn't mean that we necessarily agree or
disagree with outcomes. That's not what we are doing. We're
looking at the investigations themselves and if we find
that there's a deficiency that materially affects the
outcome, then we send a recommendation to reopen to the
respective entity for the for that entity to address. Um,
those deficiencies.
Out of the 13 recommendations to reopen that we sent in 2023
10 were sent to Coppa and 3 were sent to Bia of those 3
recommendations to reopen. Bia accepted all 3
recommendations to reopen as they had also accepted all the
recommendations to reopen in 2022. Um we're not here to
talk about 2024 but that um is not the case this year, with
respect to copel. We sent 10 recommendations to reopen, 6
were decline or 60% and 4 were um, accepted to reopen by
Coppa. And so we have summaries of those recommendations to
reopen in the annual report, we put some summaries of our
recommendations to reopen in our quarterly report. And now
we also published on the recommendations to reopen. Once
um, there has been final disciplinary decision once the
case is closed. And so the first 1 that we've published
this year in case anyone is in
Interest is with regard to um cpds uh investigation into
members with associations with the oathkeepers. Uh so all
those things are there and available and so I won't go into
all the details. But that is a an important part of our
work. Um, that is worth looking further into
Want to give you a few stats just about, uh, the clothes
disciplinary. Um,
investigation so 66.8% of Investigations were initiated by
a civilian complainants. Um 33.2% of those investigations
reached close final um status within 1 year.
Investigations that were initiated by CPD. Members were
more likely to reach sustained findings.
And investigations with sustained finance took longer on
average to investigate than um those investigations with
other outcomes.
Most closed investigations um conducted by bi and Coppa
resulted in, no sustained findings and the most common
disciplinary recommendation, forced the same findings, uh,
were suspensions
4.3% of screen, EV investigations had associations with
civil lawsuits, um, and investigations with video evidence
were more likely to result in sustained Finance. So, those
are just some key takeaways as it relates to disciplinary,
investigation of CPD members,
Last, I want to turn to our third approach. Um, for the
public safety sections work, which is an analysis of data
regarding the city's, Public Safety, and police
disciplinary operations.
So if you go to our website, again, IG chicago.org
information portal, click down, you will see, uh, Public
Safety dashboards. And I'm going to go through a few of the
trends from 2023 that anyone can go and observe, um, from
the dashboards with regard to 911 calls for service um,
volumes for 2023 decreased slightly by 0.7%. Um since 2022.
The most common types of 911 calls were disturbance,
domestic disturbance, and checks for well-being.
Calls for service were unevenly distributed throughout the
city as they have been in Prior years, with higher
concentrations, on the South and West sides of the city.
And in 2023, the 8th District had the highest total number
of calls for service and the 20th District had the lowest
number of calls.
next, I'm going to turn to um we have 3 different
dashboards, where you can view a rest data investigatory,
Stop reports which um, doesn't only entail traffic stops.
But, um, any stops, um, including those, uh, of civilians,
as they may be on foot, um, and tactical, response reports
as it relates to cpd's use of force.
black subjects were over represented in both arrests and
investigatory stops relative to their portion. Um, of
Chicago's population, investigatory stops increased by
14.2% from 2022 to 2023.
CPD arrests increased by 16.3%.
During during that same time frame um in 2023 arrest peaked
in July and unlike in Prior years it stayed at the same
level including throughout the winter months instead of
decreasing
The 11 districts number of arrests and investigatory stops.
with regard to tactical response reports, um, that number
increased by 31.9% and unlike in 2022, the tactical
response report incident is back to preco.
As far as number 76% of tactical response report incidents
from 2019 to 2023 involved, at least 1 black subject. Um,
so black subjects were overwhelmingly the subjects of
tactical response report incidents
compared to 2019 Bataan. Use and Firearm discharge increase
and take Downs taser discharge and chemical weapon,
discharged decrease. Um we also have a dashboard um where
you can look up the complaint and notification in history
for any CPD members. You can do that by first name last
name, star number. Um, but now I'm going to go into our
sworn CPD member, uh, dashboard.
There was a slight increase of 0.37% and sworn members from
January to December of 2023.
Uh, the proportion of, uh, Latino sworn members increased
6.23%, from 2019 to 2023 in the proportion of white, sworn
CPD members, decreased by approximately 6.22%.
From 2019 to 2023 of the CPD members hired in the last 2
years approximately, 52.4% identified as Hispanic.
the largest number of,
Years of experience where a c for CPD member decreased uh,
was with the CPD members with 11 to 15% of experience and
that decrease was by approximately 8.6% um, measurement
from December. 2019 through December 2023.
so, at a high level that, um,
Gives you the 3 main bucket areas as far as the audit base
reviews and inquiries, I review of closed, disciplinary
investigations and the public safety dashboards, but I also
would like to highlight some of the community engagement
events that we participated in last year. Um as those
events are very important to the work that we do and
specifically I just want to highlight National Night Out
which happens the first Tuesday of August each month. Uh,
for me, it's a really important night because it embodies
what we are striving for which is where we have community
members in and out of uniform coming together toward a
common goal, um, specifically the goal of Public Safety.
um so we were at 6 different locations in 2023 covering 8
districts and Inspector General. And myself went to all 8
districts, uh, where we had, uh, Public Safety members
participating.
So again in 2023 oig became the first and only component of
city government to achieve and maintain full compliance
with the consent decree. Um, and to conclude, um, this
continues to be a pivotal time in Chicago and proving the
relationship between communities and police is critical to
improving, Public Safety and transparency is key to that
goal, um, as policing and Public, Safety, and police
accountability are all interconnected the public safety
section, and I are grateful to have the opportunity to
contribute, um, during this critical and crucial moment in
history, oig's mission is to make Chicago city government
more closely resemble, the 1 in Chicago and deserve, and
that's not just in words or on paper. But in the ways that
impact residents day-to-day lives, thank you for your time.
And I welcome any questions.
You know, thank you for an outstanding presentation. They're
all detailed you covered a lot. Um, I know there's
questions and I would just like to ask committee members,
uh, for those of you that do have shot spotter questions.
If you could hold those questions, uh, to the second part
of our presentation, and direct any questions, uh, to the
substance of the report of the annual report that you just
had the, uh, overview of and, and um, I will start us off.
Um, my question involves a recent announcement that, uh,
the city will be, um, using the care team going forward
with no Public Safety Representatives. No police, no fire
involved. It will strictly be Public Health, what does that
do to your jurisdictional oversight going forward? Because
obviously, that's a public safety function, but it will not
be including police and fire, how are we going to do an
analysis of that? Uh, you know, in the next annual report?
What does that look like? So I'll just highlight that the
public safety. Sections jurisdiction covers the Chicago
Police Department, um, Copa Bia within CPD, the police
board. Ccpsa was created after, uh, the public safety
section was formed, uh, but their ordinance specifies,
that, uh, 2 years after the commission has been in place
that the public safety section will conduct a review of the
public safety. I mean of ccps. I, so, I say that to say
that, um, even for entities that were created after, um,
Public Safety. The public safety section jurisdiction was
established. Uh, when legislation is put in place, it
allows us to still conduct um, oversight over those
functions and then I will pass the mic.
Um, I will just add quickly to that that um the public
safety sections, enabling ordinance specifies. That, in
addition to those entities, the deputy Richardson laid out
CPD Coppa and the police board. The public safety section
May, um, inquire into any other City Department, whose
operations are relevant to, to those that are identified
and I think that would certainly include, um, Public Safety
operations. Like those are the care teams. The the other
thing to say here is that 1 of the good and beneficial
reasons to locate the city's Inspector General for Public
Safety function, within the office of Inspector General is
that oig has city-wide jurisdiction. And so working with
and across sections. In our office, we have jurisdiction
over all, all City, departments, All City operations. Good.
Thank you. That's, uh, it's a good answer to an important
topic because we're going to need to look closely at this,
uh, as we go forward. Um, I would like to add Alderman,
Hall and Alderman, Central Lopez to the Quorum roll call.
Also uh, alderwoman Silverstein and uh, Alderman's pisado.
You had
The question. Thank you. Chairman. I get to go first. All
right, thank you.
Thank you for your report. I appreciate it. I did have a
shot spotter question, but I guess I'll hold off on that.
Uh, so I have 1 question, I didn't have this question
before till I heard your report and it's something I always
say in a bothers me. And if you could take notes on this, I
would appreciate it. And then we can maybe talk about it
offline. Uh, so you mentioned about the disparity and stops
in certain communities. So this is something factual, I'm
giving you, okay, I represent the 16th District all of the
16th District because of my ward along with the pilot
Tano's, Ward and Gardener's Warden a multitude of aldermen.
It's 28 and a half square miles. The 16th District, the
15th District was was, is really only like 3 4. Miles.
South of the 16th District is 3 and a half square miles.
They have 220 officers there. The 16th District has 190. So
the way I figure it you have 66 officers per square mile in
the 15th 6 in the 16th. Therefore there's going to be way
more stops in the 15th. So I'm just asking to take a look
at that. Maybe we could talk about that someday because I
keep hearing about these disparities, obviously we have
more police and concentrated in areas. Our beets are every
are 2 square miles. We're in a 15th, they may be 4 or 6
blocks. So, um, that's my reasoning for the disparity. So
with that, thanks for the port and it's a chairman
Thank you for your feedback.
Uh, Alderman, Napolitano followed by Alderman Lopez. I I
apologize. Mine just a point of information. I, I would
like if you could take my colleagues question and actually
do it across across the entire city because the 17th
District Falls in that same same issue. Uh, I believe the
24th district has that same issue, um, where a lot of these
districts have little to no police officers in them, um,
and I think that's, I, I would just like to see that number
across the entire city of Chicago would be nice.
Thank you. Thank you, chairman.
Thank you Alderman Lopez.
It's the FBI. Mike.
Just kidding, just kidding.
Good morning. Uh, chairman and good morning, excuse me,
members of the committee. So I have a number of questions
from the report, um, as I'm and first off, I just want to
commend you both for a, a, once again, a thorough, and
informative presentation. And, and there's a reason why you
are leading the way on the consent decree and it shows. So
I wish CPD and others would follow and stop making excuses
and just do the work that we need to get to.
Um, but I'm going to go.
Through because I made a few notes. So turning to page 16
of of this report, um, with regards to
911 response data collection and Reporting it states. That
CPD had no issues with uh, 3 out of the 5 but had issues
when it came to coordinating with oemc to audit the pmis
data for completeness. And then number 5, comprehensively
evaluate response, time data for operational improvements.
And you cite that their answer is because of Manpower
technology and bandwidth.
Can you expound on that, please?
Well.
Um, I'm not sure that we can expand. Um, on cpd's answer
for them. I I don't want to speak for them. I think and and
chairman CPD is not here today, just to work, correct.
Or are they here?
Okay.
Um, I will say so, so we published the Department's
response in whole uh attached to that report.
Um, I understand that response to be sort of a practical
consideration of what there is capacity to do. Um that does
not address our concerns about the quality of data
collection. Um the the the bottom line of that report is as
you see that in the absence of higher quality and more
complete response data, it is
very challenging to make any kind of programmatic assessment
of response times whether that's 1 about geographic
disparity or improvements related to technology use for
example or any number of other things.
So I guess my question would be in as a follow-up then are
their recommendations that were meant to were sent. Excuse
me to the department to say,
What are your man? What these are the identified Manpower
issues and technological issues you need to address in
order to achieve these goals? Is there a recommendation
that you have specifically on that?
Just the ones in the report to which the department
responded specifically. So, um, as is the regular Cadence
of our reporting, we will go back to the department and and
see whether any corrective actions have been taken on those
recommendations and Report out further. So I would, I would
like to see if we can have provided through the chair what
the specific recommendations were to address those because
as we have budget coming up, um,
To hear that we don't have the manpower to deal with or the
technology. Um those are 2 part 2 different departments,
that 3 different departments actually because if you
incorporate Human Resources as well, that'll be sitting
right? Where you are who can explain to us, um, why this is
not a priority moving forward? I, I, I welcome and
encourage that discussion during budget. There, the
recommendations we made are just the ones in the report
itself. So nothing further to provide but I'd be happy to
talk about it further or if you could provide what the what
their Manpower specific Manpower shortage was that they
listed.
So for example, and this is 100% example. I'm only assuming
that they said that. Maybe they only have 5 out of the 20
positions in their it Department field or whatever their
excuse is going to be. We'd very much like to know so that
we can ensure that whatever the answer they has been given
is reply to here. They're complete response is attached to
an appendix a oh, okay? And that's all there is okay.
Um, on that same page, page 17, the gang database or
whatever we call it now. Um,
is that still in use?
And are we limited solely to what the ccpsa uh, has
provided or can city council? Take legislative action again
to start, uh, ensuring that data collection is being used
properly, as well as effectively to address. Uh,
generational gang issues in our neighborhoods.
I have lots of fun questions. The question of the current
state of cpd's use is a question for CPD. Um I I would
welcome and answer to that question as well. Um,
We found that, um, that very little had changed based on the
recommendations in oig's. Original report, the question of
the current state of affairs is is a, is a good and timely
1 for the Department.
Um, in terms of, of the council's, legislative capacities,
ccpsa policy-making Authority is with respect to the
department. Ccpsa has a role in general, although not
special orders in the police department, um, that does not
replace or a null. The council's legislative Authority, and
Going back to page 29. Now.
under the
follow-up with regards to video release and use of force
incidents.
Um,
It refers to the notification Matrix Matrix document and
things of that nature as well as the uh, mayor's office.
Um,
Being a, a not working with our own Department of Law to
update the policies reflective of coupa has that changed
under this Administration.
Not that we know of we have not followed up since the
report summarized there.
On page 35.
Or improving board decisions.
Um,
the inconsistency of board decisions.
Um, where it was recommended uh, by your office. Um, and
agree generally that they should strive to ensure internal
factual consistencies but basically say that they are the
final Arbiter. Is that something that can be changed
legislatively or is that just a, is that a mindset issue,
whereas the Fault happen with regards to different outcomes
for the same type of complaints against officers.
Well.
I will say, I think this is this is
challenging question, around fairness and consistency
because you all have heard me say many times that I think
among the most important things we could accomplish in the
public safety reform landscape would be a police
disciplinary system in which both members of the public and
members of the department have reason to be confident. A
system that looks like. That is 1, that is fair and
consistent. In in, in its treatment of people involved,
both complainants and department members,
That said every case is different, every case must be
considered on its facts. And so getting at issues of
fairness and consistency in a way which appropriately
acknowledges and, and kind of grapples with facts specific
circumstances in cases this challenging, those
recommendations had to do with were in in effort, to
encourage the police board, which was at the time. And, and
may or may not again function in an adjudicatory capacity
for serious. Police misconduct cases to at least ensure as
a matter of fairness and consistency that its treatment of
of questions, of fact, we're kind of internally internally
consistent across a case.
and,
Question. Okay.
Um, lastly, and thank you chairman for indulging me. Um, 2
things 1. I want to agree with my colleagues over here who
questioned about stops and the size of districts. I have
both 8 and 7 which are right next to each other and 7 would
appear on your graph to be overly policed um but that's not
not necessarily the case when you look at the fact that we
have a 10 to 1 ratio officer person ratio in 1 district and
a, a 5 to 1 in another. Um, but I have a question with
regards to our sworn officers on page 65, it says that in
2019
We started the year if I'm reading this correctly with 13353
13353 officers and 2023, we started the year with 11731
officers so we're
roughly short.
2000.
Officers, give or take.
Is this the 2000 that were?
These 2,000 positions that are budgeted that were wiped
out. Is this vague? Do we have a 2000 vacant uh 2000 vacant
positions within the department? Is that how this is uh
reading
That number reflects, um, people in positions. So it
doesn't reflect anything about how many vacancies there are
or whether that the number of vacancies has remained the
same. That's just number of people in the positions. I will
say on the Staffing questions and I appreciate all of the
questions about Staffing across districts, um, 1 of the
things, which we have done this year on our Public. Safety
dashboards on our information portal is to update and
expand our dashboard which shows information on Staffing
Levels by District. Um, we have updated that to include
information by time of day by present for Duty status. Etc.
So we have made an effort to improve our data so that you
and your constituents can get a clearer view of exactly
this question, which many of you are raising which is a
critically important 1 which is like how many people are
working on the street in your ward at any given time. So um
that is very much a question which should be further
elucidated by the Staffing study and other measures that
this B
Ing, others are taking. But we have also taken some steps to
do what we can to offer more and better data on that. We
would be happy to to sort of walk through that dashboard
with you all anytime and is that also include um the
seniority or the years of experience at a at a point in
time, like for example, are we able to look at the Ninth
District and see on Third Watch? That's our our least
senior group versus our first watch. Is that also
Incorporated in that dashboard. Yes, awesome. Thank you
both. Thank you chairman.
Thank you Alderman Lopez.
Alderman Harris, go ahead on your point.
Alderman Mitchell on a point of clarification. So in this
this is the director of Ottoman Lopez and I heard this
several times and I'm I'm compelled to ask this question to
you, you say it over Police, use the phrase over police.
Can you kind of tell what does that mean to you? Because
I'm hearing this phrase a lot and the people in my
neighborhood are like we're not policed enough. So
let's so I know what you mean with an and not going to
better understand your question.
Okay.
Um,
The the reference to over policing speaks to what is the
perception that there are too many police in a
neighborhood. So, when you have, for example,
In this.
Document. There's a a section that shows how many
uh,
911 calls were made in a district.
Um or how many? Where's the the investigatory stops? If I'm
I'm not mistaken. It shows that, like, for example, the 7
districts Anglewood, which has a population of 51,000
people had 1 of the top 5 stops in the, in the city of
Chicago. Um, some not necessarily me, but some would say
that, that is over policing. Especially when you compare it
to the 8th District, which is right next door, which has a
significantly lower number of investigatory stops. However,
statistically speaking that doesn't match up because you
also have additional District that's 5 times as large in
his
half the number of police officers as its
comparative districts. So some would argue that the 8th
district has under policing because it doesn't have enough.
Um, but that's the only reason I bring that up.
Thank you. Okay, thank you Alderman Mitchell. Uh, further
question from either committee members Alderman, Chico
Thank you, chair. Um, real quick question out of the 80,
some odd cases that were asked to be reopened. Was there
anything, common among amongst those that would uh, lead to
those being reopened.
I'm gonna, I'm gonna pounce on this question to, to not
exactly answer it. I think, um, not necessarily in 2023, I
do want to flag something, a trend that I think has emerged
in 2024, which is a little bit unfair because it's a little
bit outside your question. But, um, but I think this is an
area of important concern. We have seen a collection of
cases where we've made recommendations to reopen in 2024
which coupa has closed in part of what it has called, its
timeliness initiative. Um, that is a program which Copa
instituted implemented to reduce its backlog of old
investigations and it set out a series of criteria. Which
if a case met these criteria, it might be closed. Short of
findings, it might be closed administratively. And in 2024,
we have sent a series of recommendations to reopen on cases
which coupa has closed as part of that initiative, which do
not appear to meet its criteria. Um, so I I say that by way
of sort of forecast for this conversation about the 2024
data, I'm not sure that there's a clear through line in the
2023 cases.
but I think that there will be in 2024
I think, great.
Alderwoman foreigners and a point of clarification.
Can you talk about the criteria that Copa currently has? And
And what recommendations you would make that uh informed
you to have these cases sort of reopen
Uh, yes. And I'm I'm sorry to have taken us on a little bit
of a detour here but um, the Copa lays out criteria in its
kind of program documents on this initiative that identify
uh characteristics of a case which would make it ineligible
for administrative closure. So there are for example. Um,
allegation types, which Copa says would render a case,
ineligible for administrative closure, right? Which means
that they never come to an investigative finding, there's
no recommendation, there's no conclusion. And so those case
those case types that are listed include things like, um,
improper use of force with injury or allegations of sexual
misconduct Etc. There are other types as well. Search
warrant execution is another 1. And so this, the spirit of
the recommendations to reopen that we have made this year
in that area, is that we've seen cases closed
administratively, short of findings as part of the
timeliness initiative which do not on their face appear to
meet the criteria. So for example, we have seen cases that
do in fact involve allegations arising from a search
warrant execution but they are closed administratively as
part of this initiative or
Um, we looked at 1 case, which involved uh allegations of of
improper use of force. There were injuries with medical
records, the city. In fact, paid out a $50,000 settlement
because of the injuries sustained in this incident but Copa
closed the matter as part of its timeliness initiative. So
those are the kinds of things that we have identified which
I think will be a sort of cluster or a trend in the 2024
case data.
ottoman Chico, you still have the floor for your line of
questioning
Concluded. Okay. Further questions.
Alderman. Central Lopez.
Thank you. Thank you, chairman. And I appreciate and thank
you. The Inspector General.
Um, for this important report. Um, just today, you know, we
continue to see, you know, the settlements, how expensive
this is for the city of Chicago. Um, but here how
physically, uh, responsible we have to be and I think this
is part of them, you know, insurance, that we have a
consent decree that is executed, and follow the
recommendations of the Inspector General.
um, with that in mind I, you know, I read a few um,
In, you know, several of these. But I, I will refer
specifically in some of like, you know, then a page 27 and
in in some of the previous recommendations when it comes to
um,
Copa, right? I think that um and I support the oversight. I
do think that is important to have checks and balances. Um,
I'm also concerned where investigations are closed and then
reopen, um,
What issues have you seen in terms of the criteria? I mean,
I'm not going to refer to specific cases because they're
still in litigation but cases where coupa has reopened um,
investigations and then those investigations have resulted
in disciplinary actions. Uh, what are the criteria? I just
see my concern is because I see some of these
recommendations have not been adopted, have been declined.
So I'm also interested on legislative changes so that um
the criteria right, it is and and I think some of you
recommendations of course is to reopen to be more diligent
diligent, but what can be, what can be doing in this body
to ensure that these recommendations that follow, right? I
concerned about the politicization of issues, you know, in
terms of Institutions that need the support of the body and
they are if they are legislative changes that we must
Implement. I would like to hear because I see a number of
recommendations that were rejected.
I reject that question um the criteria that is set out
currently in the law for our recommendations to reopen is
that we may make such a recommendation when we find an
investigation has a deficiency materially affecting its
outcome that's the legal standard set out in the law. So
that this is not a Monday morning quarterbacking exercise.
This is not a we would have done it differently exercise we
would have come to a different finding we would have made a
different recommendation. Rather the law is written to
focus the effort on investigative quality and to permit a
recommendation to reopen only.
Only at what I read to be a fairly high threshold, which is
that we find a deficiency in the investigation materially
affecting its outcome. That's obviously a little bit of a
challenging exercise because it requires a determination,
that if something had been different in the investigation,
the outcome would have been different, but that's the
exercise. That's the the the only criteria that's set out
in the law in terms of of legislation around that. And what
the structure of the law looks like, I the observation I
would make. I, I think there are some policy questions here
which are certainly for you all to decide the observation.
I would make, is that both the public safety section
ordinance and the Copa ordinance. They don't line up
perfectly on this point, but but both of those pieces of
law, make it entirely within the Copa. Chief
administrator's discretion, whether or not to follow a
recommendation from oig to reopen a materially deficient
investigation.
I think that is a policy Choice whether that decision
should be entirely within the discretion of the chief
administrator.
That's the observation I would make about the state of the
legislation. That's also true for Bia in 2022 and 2023.
They accept that all of our recommendations to reopen but
2024 is a different scenario. So
Yeah, thank you and my follow-up question. Um, it is
because the Hub I mean, not not to refer specific cases
where um, Copa
Uh, copper reviews, you know, with a number of personnel,
specific case, right? The case does not get reopened, um,
eventually someone gets a handle of a video evidence of
something else, right? Um, what recommendations can we
follow? Um, because the discretion of 1, um, 1 person, I
think again we we we can see the number, you know, they can
be a number of factors but um I do think that we can
strengthen that process to ensure that, uh, we have a
strong, a stronger review again. Another don't, I won't
refer to specific cases, but even as a recently, we've seen
cases that
Scopa Staffing, reviews material evidence.
Closes the case only for in a different process re re
reevaluate. What is the process of reevaluation, right? And
then up, obviously, when that result is on a on, on a
different outcome, it is concerning that there was material
review and discretion that was not
Use properly, my opinion. Yeah.
I I the the only thing I'll add there. I think all of those
are I hear all those concerns. The thing I will add here is
that Deputy Richardson mentioned that we have now begun. We
did not used to do this but we have now begun publishing.
The entirety of our recommendations to reopen and the
responses that we get from both the Bureau of internal
affairs and Coppa. And that is in recognition of the
importance of all of the issues that you've raised and the
need for some, some Shining Light on the processes that
occur in these disciplinary cases because I agree with you,
these process, what, what happens in these cases when
something goes, wrong is really important. Um, the fairness
of the outcomes is really important. As I said earlier, we
need, we need a system here in which both members of the
department, and members of the public can be confident. And
so in the interest of kind of increasing the transparency
around all of these questions, we are publishing these
recommendations and responses in their entirety with all
the case information that they contain. So going forward
starting last quarter and going forward, you will find
those on our website. We're always happy to to talk about
them further.
Finally, my last. And I know that this is, you know, um, in
the report in terms of General Public Safety, right? Uh, I
remain concerned about um you know, as you mentioned
recommendations, what they have been um false testimony, um
um, I do think that those things are concerning. I know
that there has been even concerning about a false testimony
other agencies. In the case, for instance, the old Keepers
Keepers proud boys. Remaining at the force. A do we like to
encourage because these are expensive misconduct cases? And
I think discriminatory practices within a department that's
supposed to do Public Safety. I think remains to be a
concern. So again, and I know that you have been very
proactive in taking these cases, so I will take the
opportunity again to encourage that we follow suit because
these are expensive expensive matters for the city as well
as ethical and moral considerations that I would love to
take action after the hearings that we have had. Thank you
chair.
Thank you, Alderman, Alderman Hall? Did you have an
inquiry? Yes, thank you. Uh, chairman I want to go back,
uh, it was mentioned in passing, but I want to get a little
bit more context about the improper use of force. Did you
not say that those? Uh, situations are are up, uh,
pertaining to African-Americans?
But excuse me, that's worth in regard to. Yes, technical
uh,
response report incidents that they had increased from
31.9% not necessarily that it was up as it relates to um,
African-Americans, but it continued to it. Continues to
remain disproportionately.
High, as it relates to the proportion of African-Americans
in the Chicago population. Specifically, I'm during the
time frame so 76% of tactical response report incidents.
From 2019 to 2023 involved. Black subjects Cassie. Um I
don't know if this in here, but want to know has there been
any data done around have those individuals or they found
innocent um in which those you know take Downs happened and
it was excessive what was the outcome of the situation was?
The person innocent to lead to what did it lead to do? We
have any data on that?
So, you're trying to ask whether there's a correlation
between use of force and outcomes of possible criminal
investigations. Yes, I don't have that information.
That is not data that's captured in our dashboards. I I
think that is a, there is a theoretically feasible data
analysis there um because you could use event numbers as as
a sort of um index across tactical response. Reports,
arrest reports, case reports, and then Court outcomes. So I
think that I think there's a theoretically possible data
analysis there but it's not 1 that we've done, okay. Um,
thank you.
Thank you Alderman, halt, further, questions on the annual
report.
Alderman Moore.
Um,
The going to page 37 on the sexual, um, misconduct. Um,
when I'm reading kind of qualifying, sexual misconduct
cases, but I can't primary category closed investigations
24.
Um, but of the 53 qualifying sexual misconduct reviewed
sort of 53.
And reviewed in 2023 that don't mean that were that were
only 53, right?
Pardon me, will you repeat the last part of your question?
I'm sorry where it says of the 53 qualifying statue of
misconduct case, just reviewed by oig at 2023 that were
them just 53 or whether they are more than 53 or that's
just 53 that you are reviewed.
For your analysis. So per consent. Decree paragraph, 444, we
review all of the investigations where there are
allegations of sexual misconduct against CPD members. So
53, total, okay, correct based on the report. And so of
that 5324 were closed based on the graph that I'm looking
at correct.
I'm I'm and I'm on page 37 so we can follow.
And so your question is with regards to the number of 24.
Of the 53.
24 were closed, based on what I said, figure 3 count or
qualifying social media by Primary Care closed.
Investigations in 2023. So that's 24 were closed.
No. So what that is saying is it says um based on the
primary category. So out of the 53 investigations closed,
sometimes they are additional uh allegations of misconduct.
I don't mean to cut you off because I don't want to miss
hear you. You said at a 53 clothes? I don't think you meant
to say that and if you did then you did because it says 53
reviewed. So I want to make sure I'm we're saying the same
same thing. That's what I want to make, okay? And I want to
be sure too. So if you'll give me all of a few seconds,
I'll make sure that we are on the same page. Uh so out of
The 53 investigations that met the definition of sexual
misconduct. If you are specifically asking about the number
closed in 2023, 38 were closed. Not the 24.
24 periods to the category. So not all just because the
allegations, um, include allegations of sexual misconduct,
it doesn't mean that uh, that it will be closed to include
findings of, um, sustained Finance as they pertain to
allegations of sexual misconduct.
Okay. No I but there are other but we don't have to hop on
that. I will get to that later. So 53.
There were 53 cases. Let's start their correct.
Of those 53.
How many were?
Closed.
So of the 53, qualifying sexual misconduct cases reviewed
by oig a total of 14 cases were investigated to a finding
uh,
and of the
So 14 investigating was sustained Finance for has sustained
allegations unrelated to sexual misconduct and 3 um had
sustained Finance related to sexual misconduct.
okay, so it can be closed for a different reason out of the
53, only
14.
has sustained finding and then out of the 14,
14 had findings and 7 had sustained findings.
53.
14 sustain findings.
No 14 finding 7, sustain findings for for allegations
unrelated to sexual misconduct 3 for allegations related to
sexual misconduct, right? So of that 53, we only came out
with 3 that was clearly related to
Sexual misconduct because I think when I was reading in
here, certain things can be verbal. But not yet, you know,
somebody made, oh, he sexually, you know, whatever, because
they used the verbal, says something verbal. Those type of
things that is correct. So the final number of 3 out of 53
where it's the same findings relating to allegations of
sexual misconduct. Okay. And do you recall of those 3 were
those um
What was the result in terms of?
The discipline discipline, so the discipline range from 2
days suspension through separation.
Okay. On the short end, 1 recommendation. Discipline
recommendation was for 2 days suspension on the long end, 1
was separation a recommendation for separation of that CPD.
So help me then understand because I get to the point of
the verbal things.
if if if of those 3 that were the same,
How do we determine?
then I'm assuming these 3 were
Some some some type of bodily touching or something like
that. I'm I'm assuming, I don't know how egregious it was.
I'm just I I don't and I don't know if that's the good
assumption to make being that we went from 53 to 3 being
sustained. So 3 to me would be
very egregious.
Or something out of that but tell me, I don't know.
Consent decree paragraph 782 defines sexual misconduct and
so it can range. So, for example, how I said, only 1 was
recommended to the state attorney's office for, uh,
criminal prosecution, and that's because, um, something
that may qualify maybe a criminal violation, but not
necessarily right or something. Maybe be a violation of
Sexual misconduct as defined by the consent decree, but not
necessarily a violation of the criminal code. Ultimately,
she got pretty legs. Then she said, okay, that's sexual
misconduct. But it may not be criminal, but it may be
You know, it may be, it may not be criminal, but it may
result in some type of disciplinary action. That's correct.
Okay, okay.
All right, I just want to be clear. Thank you. Thank you
Alderman. Uh, please add Alderman, Ervin to the Quorum roll
call and Paul had a follow-up. Yes, thank you again, Mr.
Chairman, I want to go back to the um, findings around.
Um, the improper use of force and I want to ask you this
question, has there been a table or is there any data
connected to the, uh, amount of money that has been? Um,
you know, loss due to improper use of force
That's a very good question to which the short answer is.
No. Oh okay. Um, the city is not well equipped to track.
I'm assuming you're talking about money, paid out in
settlements and judgments. The short answer is that the
city's? Well, this is a medium length answer. The city is
not well equipped to track how much money is being paid out
out by case type, or in fact, by involved CPD member or
there were ever disciplinary investigations associated with
the incidents which gave rise to the payout. There are
tremendous gaps in the city's ability to track all of those
questions because of the quantity and the quality of data
that's being
Collected about lawsuits which lead to settlements and
judgments got you. So we may not be able to keep a count of
the amount of money. But have we kept an account of how
many cases since 2019, um have a Rose due to the improper
use of force. There is some of that information contained,
the consent decree requires the city to issue a a
litigation report every year. Um looking at reporting out
on a number of metrics with CPD related litigation um
There is some amount of that kind of data in that report.
Got you. Okay, that was it. Thank you so much.
Okay, uh, before we move to the shots spotter discussion,
further questions on the annual report from Public Safety.
I'll in Irving.
Thanks, Mr. Chairman, uh, where, uh, if at all, um, the
type of work you guys are doing on, uh, in the police to
police and fire departments related to, uh, medical uh,
role use.
um,
That is not something we reported out on in 2023 but it is
something that we are interested in and who have looked up
before we will look at again in in various City,
departments, including police and fire.
um when you did, look at that previously uh what if any
recommendations were made and and what if any were followed
by the respective departments
I don't believe we've made any specific recommendations
around medical role use. I will say this is 1 of the things
that's reflected on our new Staffing dashboard so we talked
talked a little bit about this earlier that we have a new
data dashboard showing. Um, more Staffing information for
the police department people. How many people are working
where and when 1 of the things that that dashboards allows
you to do is to select for on duty status, so that you can
select out Patrol members who are on the medical role and
then they won't show up in the Staffing numbers because
they're not, they're not working.
Um, understood, uh, I guess the question and what what
starting to see. And this is having a, a serious Financial
implication on the city, uh, especially as it deal around
deals around. Pensions uh is the amount of disability
payments that have been increasingly uh going up from both
police and fire and our ability as a city to maintain
adequate levels of funding. Uh, this is uh, pardon the
of a lot of the challenges budget that we face as our uh
our, uh, annual required contribution continues to rise
the fact that we cannot have a long-term assets for, for
the, for the payroll that we are doing on a on a month.
Basis on these claims. So I that's why I asked the question
question because it seems as if the city is money in this
area. Uh, however, uh, we're not doing anything in my
opinion, proactively to deal with it. So that's why I asked
asked the question. I'm asking why? I mean, again from a
financial aspect it's it's a huge area of concern and you
as our for lack of a better term, internal audit function,
uh, I think is something that we need to be evaluating and
looking at. So that's why I asked. Where are you at in that
conversation? What's happening in that regard and where is
it on your radar?
I appreciate that point, I I hear that concern. The only
other thing I will add is that we recently published an
audit, um, of the Cities.
Um, Workers Compensation Program on the civilian side. So
we looked at non-policing, fire, non-sworn, uh, disability
payments. We made some some recommendations there. Um, I I
can imagine we have not undertaken this project although I
hear I hear, I think a good the good observation that it
might be worth doing. I think some of the observations and
and the Lessons Learned on the civilian side, might kind of
point us in the direction of some places to go on the
police and fire side.
well I I get that but let's let's keep in mind that uh
police and fire about 60% of what we spend our money at. Um
and just those 2 departments and efficiencies there would
could have a greater impact, not only just on our financial
situation but a lot of what I hear my colleagues speaking
of is officers that are ready and able to perform uh,
perform their duties. So um, I'm I'm hopeful that in the
near future that that's 1 of the areas that the department
looks at because of the level of impact that it can have on
us operationally and long term as we look at the long term,
the long term, liabilities that we continue to have for my
pension obligations. So uh, that, that was Point number 1.
second item, uh, where you talked about calls for service
um, and districts, uh, is there or has there been
methodology or a way that you all have a delineated? The
differences in calls. Meaning for example,
Not to be little um a well-being check versus uh somebody
somebody just robbed me, right? Are there even if, in the
priority, the prioritization of calls? What do these calls
look like? I know, for example, my colleagues in the 8th
District said, hey, I, we've got all these calls for
service. I'm not saying that they don't have the calls. I'm
just trying to understand the prioritization of the calls,
and the allocation of Manpower there, too. So how have you
all looked at it?
From that aspect. Or is it just pure?
The, the robbery in progress is treated the same as the cat
in the tree.
We absolutely have have sort of sliced up the data by
prioritization level. I think you're absolutely right. I
think that's a very important piece of the picture. When we
look at when we look at calls for service, so on our
dashboard, on our 911, calls for service dashboard, you can
sort by um priority level. So um,
Sort by level you can sort by call type. You can select for
calls which are designated as behavioral health related or
not. You can look at the data across all of those metrics
because I agree not all calls for service are the same
And how do you when you are looking at? Because I I think
that like, if we are just
if we're not painting it in the
The light of what the calls are. Uh, in the argument that
hey, we need more resources or we need less resources, can
easily be made, but when we start looking at prioritization
and I don't know, uh, when we reported that way, if we look
at, you know, priority 1 cause priority 2 calls Party 3
calls by district and what's going on. And looking at
Manpower, they may have a better explanation as to why
things because if we don't look at it that way, of course.
Um, in the eighth District go to 16 District. I got a bunch
of calls from service and I don't have adequate people to
cover those calls. I'm not, we're not trying to belittle
anyone's call or call, like they're dialing now.
1, that's important to them. But uh, we also have to
Take into account, the prioritization of each of those
calls and and my question, ultimately, is, what are we
doing to? I guess, better?
Analyze that function, versus just reporting it out as as a
whole.
um,
I'd be interested and happy to talk about that further.
What we are doing for. The moment is making the data
available both on 911 calls By Priority level and um,
Staffing by District. We have not done this sort of
crosswalk analysis, um, but I'd be happy to talk about that
further.
Okay, I I like I said, I think it's important. I mean we do
look to you all for, you know, for recommendations, uh, on
that, uh, on that, that type of activity. Because we are
again, we said this before, everybody is entitled to their
own opinion, but they're not entitled to their own facts.
So we just won't want to want the facts to, to be there.
And for the facts to, uh, to make sense as we, uh, as we
look at this. Um, as we look at this,
The only uh I'm going to follow with 1 item. Um we talked
about Staffing study. Um is that something that you all are
undertaking? Is there something that you all are analyzing?
Is it something that you all have looked at from previous,
Uh, iterations of other data that's been generated or
reported have been generated by various, uh, agencies, uh,
academic entities. What are you all doing in that respect?
when we published our updated Staffing dashboard, um,
earlier this year in 2024, we published a company and it a
report which talked about the various challenges around.
measuring Staffing levels, as well as building predictive
Staffing models in the department. And we talked a little
bit about the history there. The various efforts that have
been made by academic institutions, policy institutions of
the city itself, Etc, to kind of get a hold of Staffing
questions. I think it important to note that there are 2
different Staffing questions in my mind. There's the point
in time, question of how many people do we have working?
That's 1 question and then there's the predictive question
around, how many people we need depending on priority and
and so on. So 2, slightly different questions. Um
In terms of the present day, state of affairs, this body
passed, an ordinance, requiring, a staffing study, um, that
is also a requirement of the consent decree. We have not
seen that the current state of that, I think is a question
for the Department. My understanding is that the department
has engaged a third-party to, to build a staffing study. I
don't know what that looks like. I don't know what
They plan to use it for.
but I I I guess based upon, uh, previous
Information. Uh have you all a pined uh 1 where the other?
Uh, what?
What that looks like. Is that accurate? Is it is it
inaccurate is are we?
I mean is 1, I mean having that is 1 thing, but you know,
Opinion on it. It's utilization. Uh,
where where you all the net box, I should say. The position
we've taken there is to say that the police department's
data is not does not lend itself to a good and clear view
of how many people are working at any 1 time. The data is
stored in too many different places, it is incomplete and
low in quality. That's an a problem for us from an
oversight perspective. It's a problem for the Department,
from a management perspective. If we cannot get a good and
clear, hold of how many people are working in a certain
District on a certain day. Now we, we Face some serious
challenges in building a predictive model to tell us how
many people we need. That's the sort of position. We've
taken the question of how many people should be working.
Where that's a question for the Department to answer.
Isn't that and you all's professional capacity a matter for.
Evaluation at least. I mean, I I
you guys are the
You're our eyes and ears. I mean, just we set up a special
section to deal with Public Safety and the over. I'm sorry.
Go ahead. Go ahead. The oversight of the police
department's decisions. Absolutely that, that's our job.
Um, it's not our job to run the department. I'm not saying
that you have to run the department but I I do say that you
have
an I would I would say an obligation to
opine, or
or at least evaluate what has been presented or, um,
you know, put out and, and we will do that when the, when
the city puts it out, as will the consent, decree monitor
the city is required by the consent decree to perform a
staffing analysis, which will also be subject to review by
the monitor? It hasn't been done yet.
And we don't know when that potentially happens or where
that is in process per se. I, there were deadlines set out
in the ordinance that this body passed. It was introduced
by Alderman. Martin, those deadlines have passed. I don't
know what the state of the product is.
Okay.
All right. Um, thank you. Uh, Mr. Chairman, uh, I will, uh,
reserve on the uh, second matter and maybe this matter as
well. Thank you. Yes. Thank you Alderman, Ervin. We're uh,
getting close to that time. Uh, but 1 more comment on the
the, uh, annual report from Alderman Moore.
Thank you. Tim. If we can go back to that slide on the
investigatory stops, please.
It says um black steps are over represented both arrests
and investigatory, stops relative to their proportion of
Chicago's population. Let, let me start. There is, are we
keeping in a data in? Let's just say a neighborhood.
And terms and some way up North okay. A neighborhood up
North, you think name, anyone? And I'm assuming that
there's a larger and some neighborhood. I don't know if
there's a larger white population. Correct? Or a non-black
whatever you want to call it non-black non-hispanic
population. Correct. So pull out 1 of those neighborhoods.
Our
do are we collecting data that says, um,
Crimes are being committed at a higher rate.
By those non.
Black non-hispanic people. And if so are those
investigatory stops in line with those crimes?
Answer.
Much like the Staffing question? Is that all all of that
data exists? I'm not sure we have lined it up in exactly
that way. So we have looked at demographics in
investigatory stops and arrests arrests as compared to
census data, and you can do that by District on our
dashboard. So you can look at within any Police District,
what the census says, the demographic makeup of the
population. That is how many cut off I got you? I I got I
got all of that. I'm talking about and specific crime being
committed not necessarily since its data not some so if if
30.
White people live in edge water or whatever. And but the
crimes that were being reported are either.
20 white people or 10 black people. That's what I want to
Uh, we collecting that type of data because just to broadly
say, uh, as a proportion of Chicago's population because if
my 3111 C, if my 9111 calls are coming in saying,
White male, white male, white male, white male. But my
investigatory stops are saying black male Latino male.
That's the data I need to see. Yeah. Um, I'd be happy to
talk about ways. I think we could get at that. Some of the
the data about crime where there's actually a finding that
a crime has been committed, that would come out of the Cook
County courts and and we don't integrate that into our
data. But I think there are some things we could do to, to
get us on the road, I think, because this doesn't help me
that that
um, oversimplifies it and and get people in a frenzy
because if I'm an Englewood
which I am if I'm an aggressive which I am if I'm in
Chicago lawn, but my 911 calls are coming at. Um black male
Latino male, black male Latino male, black male Latino male
white male. So if my numbers I want my investigator to
stops not to be stopping.
That white, you know what I'm saying? I do because I only
got 1 call.
4.
The white, that's all I'm saying. Yeah. And and, and we
cannot oh oversimplify right there. And I I because I don't
don't want people to get up in arms. I'm a young black
male. I don't want to be targeted and all that stuff, but
I, I want the, the, the narrative to reflect
When Miss Johnson is calling will Miss Jones is calling or
miss Sally on the North side is calling. I want that that
data to reflect or those narratives to reflect that. And I
don't think that truly reflects that in that statement,
that's all I'm saying understood. Yeah.
Thank you.
All right. Thank you, Alderman Moore. Uh, this concludes
the uh the first agenda item uh, moving on to the second
agenda item. We do have uh 3 uh invited Witnesses with
subject matter. Expertise on shot spotter. They will be
giving brief presentations. Uh, those 3 individuals are
Robert Vargas from the University of Chicago School of
Social Work. Uh Jan slud from the University of Chicago,
crime lab and uh no way Flores uh Dana analyst with Chicago
Police Department. But before we bring them up while we do
have the Inspector General uh up here. She previously
presented um the findings of her report on shot, spotter to
to the Committee on Public Safety. Uh, this is a joint
committee and there's members of police and fire that did
not have the opportunity to, uh, ask her questions about
her findings. So we will, uh, we will allow for
That. Um, but I would also just like to begin by asking uh,
Inspector General woodsburgh to just opine on the current
state of the data, which she did not have access to, by the
way, when she prepared her report. Uh, so she could just
kind of bring us up to date to the extent possible. She she
only had a limited time, uh, to do that. We just gave her
the, uh, the slide presentation today. Uh, so with that, in
mind, she did have an opportunity to, to quickly, uh,
familiarize herself with the current data for this year up
until, um, the system went dark, uh, so she can opine on
that and put it in the context of her previous report. And
then, she'll entertain any questions from those who did not
have an opportunity at the previous meeting that. Thank you
chairman. I, I'll be brief here. I, um, as the chairman
mentioned oig published a report back in 2021 on the
Chicago. Police Department's, use of the shot spotter
technology. And, um, we didn't make any recommendations in
recommendations in that report and we haven't reported on
shot spotter since then. But I, I want to say, briefly,
kind of what that report says and where I think it fits
Into the present day conversation including the the data
that's been recently before this body um back in 2021. We
looked at the question of the operational value of shot
spotter to the Chicago Police Department in its effort, to
reduce violence to combat violent crime, um, which was the
framing of the use of the tool at the outset and we found
that cpd's data that we reviewed did not demonstrate a
significant operational value. For that purpose, in the use
of shot spotter, we looked at about 50,000 shot spotter
alerts.
and we found that in only about 9% of those, what did CPD
make, a record of collecting evidence related to a gun
crime in those 50,000, some odd alerts. Um, we could
connect a shot spotter alert to the recovery of a gun about
150 times. So so small numbers compared to the number of
alerts
That was the analysis that we published in 2021. And again
we didn't make any recommendations in that report. What
that report calls for is uh the making of resource
allocation decisions decisions about whether we are going
to use a law enforcement tool on the basis of a
well-informed cost benefit analysis. I think that's kind of
the Evergreen principle here, um, when it comes to
decisions about what tools we are going to use and and for
what
In that light I I think it's important to say that um how
successful something is depends an awful lot on what you're
measuring for. You're not going to grade your star pitcher
on their slugging percentage. So how successful something
is depends very, very much on what we're measuring for. The
question. We looked at back in 2021 was whether there was a
demonstrable operational value in?
Combatting violent crime. We did not see that. Operational
value. Demonstrated since that time, there have been other
conversations about metrics on which we might measure the
success of shot spotter.
Um, there's been some conversation around whether the use
of shot spot or might impact response times. That's not a
question. We have reported on. There's some research I
think on both sides of that question, more more pressingly
from my perspective as we discussed earlier, I, I do not
believe that the city's data, permits, a responsible
analysis, comparative analysis of response times. There's
not there's not high enough quality data,
um so I would sort of put that conversation to the side the
the the next conversation and the 1 that I think is is most
present before you is a conversation around the value of of
of of the use of shot spotter for purposes of getting Aid
to victims of of gun violence, that
Is or should be at the top of our Public Safety priorities.
We should be looking to save lives. Um,
I think that as we, there are a number of things to think
about there. Um,
There's some there's some research that that is is
forthcoming at crime. Lab is here today. They haven't
published a paper on their research as I understand it.
Although there's there's some data available um on the the
kind of first aid. Rendering Aid question. Um I'll say a
couple things. I I think that there is some good news
available in the data that was before you all a couple of
weeks ago, I read shots Potter's data to
Say that so far in 2024 um shot spotter alerts coincided
with the rendering of Aid to a victim 143 times.
In the overwhelming majority of those instances, someone
also called 911, so fully 95% of those instances. I read
the I read shots Waters data to say that in 136 of those
143 instances. When Aid was rendered there was both a
shots, spotter alert and a 911 call. I think that's I think
there's some good news there in terms of of the frequency
with which people might call 911.
The other thing I will say just in terms of kind of future
going consideration, um, the use of shot spotter to, to,
um, get a police officer to the side of a trauma victim
faster. Again, I I don't think there's any argument that.
That's a, a good and honorable and critically important
goal.
That's a framework where we're sending blue lights. Not red
lights, right? We're sending police cars, not ambulances as
a result of the use of that tool. And and if that's the
plan, then I think we want to invest time and resources in
equipping, the police department for good outcomes in those
situations. And I think there are some ways to do that and
we haven't, we haven't reported on this and we haven't
issued formal recommendations. I just offer these things
up, kind of for consideration. I think there are things we
could do to to best equip CBD, members to achieve good
outcomes in those situations and those things might include
ensuring um, thoroughness and depth.
Of of first aid training, making sure that every CPD unit is
equipped with first aid equipment, other cities most
notably Philadelphia have what are called scoop and run
policies. Which say that a member of the police department,
who comes across a, a trauma victim, if they can scoop them
into the police car and run them to the hospital faster
than an ambulance could get there, they should do that. Um,
as I say, Philadelphia has very clear policies around that,
there's some good research suggesting that that's an
effective life-saving technique. CPD does not have a scoop
and run policy. I think that's the kind of question which
we ought to talk about. If we are going to, if the goal of
the use of shot spotter is to get police to the side of
trauma victims faster. Then then we should measure its
success on that by that yard stick and we should equip the
department to achieve, good outcomes doing that thing.
Um, questions for the Inspector General Alderman Hall,
followed by Alderman Mosley.
Thank you again. Uh, Mr. Chairman I wanted to um,
Get it right when I heard it. So I just wanted to repeat
what you said. You said that out of the um,
Out of the um, 143. I mean, at 143 people that were rendered
aid from shot. Spotter this year
From 136 came with a shot spot alert and a call from the to
the police from citizens. Correct? That is how I read the
data that shots about represented to the. So that means
only 7 people out of the 29,000. 829 alerts were helped
with the assistance of someone calling 911, correct.
That's not our data but that's what I read it to say. Okay
cool. So 7 people out of 29829 were helped without a
resident. Calling 911 just 1 more time. Correct. That is
what I read it to say. Okay cool. Thank you so much.
So to that end, what I'm hearing you say is that when we
look at the data that has been put out there,
Without people calling 911, only 7 people will help with
just the technology by itself.
Shots about it, correct.
so,
I'm hesitating only because I that's what I read shots
about our slide to say so. So, so far between January 1st
of 2024 and August 31st of 2024, there was Aid rendered to
a gunshot victim and I apologize for reading. I just want
to make sure I'm getting it right. There's Aid rendered to
a gunshot victim, a total of 143 times.
7 of those or 5% are without a 911 caller and 136 or 95%
were with a 911 call gotcha. Um, the second question, I
wanted to ask you is, um, you said that since the beginning
of the Inception of shot spotter, each the the goals have
changed. The mission has changed and the purpose of it has
changed. What's the latest purpose? Now,
I I sort of say that to say I think the the public policy
conversation around the use of this tool has changed the
purpose of the tool. What what it is being used? For is a
question for the police department to answer. I think that
the the our responsibility in oversight and your
responsibility in legislative oversight is to measure the
value of a tool on the right yard stick and that's why I
kind of offer up that observation that how successful
something is. Depends an awful lot on what we're measuring
it for. So the measuring has changed from the Inception to
now, correct. I think it would be fair to say that that
conversations around what we are looking to achieve through
the use of shot spot or have evolved over time, I think
that. So, so it's safe to say that from the beginning of
this Inception to. Now the the purpose has changed. And
then just looking at this year alone, this technology is
only rendered assistance to 7 without the assistance of
residents, correct.
I believe that's what the data shows. Okay cool. Thank you.
Alderman Mosley followed by alderwoman Lee.
Chair director. I want to ask if if shot spotter is 1 of
the tools in the toolbox. Have we analyzed what that
pairing looks like with some of the other tools, for
example, the Pod cameras, the license plate readers,
We have not know.
Yeah that that for me is is 1 of the critical things?
Considering that we as a city have a no chase policy and
that when uh that detection goes off those cameras, go in
that direction and get some pretty concrete leads. So thank
you.
Other women lead.
Thank you chair. Um,
Hi, Deborah wants to see you. Um,
I I want to just pick up a little on where aldermen Hall
was but I want to it's more of a data. Efficacy question.
Um, can you speak a little bit to how the limitations and
data quality and record, keeping practices that you
identified in your 2021, uh, in the 2021 report? Um,
And then the most recent oig report discussed in this
meeting impacted. The analysis of shot spotters
Effectiveness. I I think we have a data quality issue,
right? Because certain pieces of data were not being
collected.
Uh certainly true here and in I think many other areas of
our oversight there are data quality uh and data
completeness questions, 1 of the obstacles. We encountered
in the shots about our analysis has to do with the tracking
of event numbers. So we we talked a little bit about this
earlier. An event number is assigned at the point of a of a
dispatch or a 911 call and it kind of follows an incident
through its lifetime. Um there are challenges around
associating, a shot spotter alert with what comes up, what,
what arises from that if the incident number is missing. So
if there's an investigatory stop report, that resulted from
a shot spotter alert, but no 1 writes down the event.
Number, then you can't combine those things. There are
similarly challenges around matching up shots about our
alerts with 911 callers in this analysis where we're trying
to say, okay how many of these shots bought our alerts had
to do with firearm discharges? Assuming, all of them are
accurate where somebody also calls
911. That's also a challenging exercise because um, you
have to sort of do a fuzzy match on the geography, right?
So, so there are certainly some challenges, um, the where
we landed on that in our 202021 report was to say,
The the data can only tell us what it tells us and the the
state of cpd's data did not demonstrate the operational
value which we were measuring. That's not to say that there
isn't an operational value. But for purposes of making the
kind of well-informed cost decision that we're talking
about, we sort of have what we have.
Do you think that, um, data collections improved from the
first study to the next?
Um, we have not returned to this since 2021. I don't know.
yeah, so I guess the the problem that I have with the line
of questioning just just now was that we don't actually
know the location of the, uh, the 9111 call that was
associated with, then the shot spotter ping because it
could be a 911 call over here for a totally separate and
different, uh, not a shooting. Even, um, could be
associated with where the shot spotter, ping went off
because you don't have the data.
To validate that do you? Well, I so I, I will say again,
the, the not our data, not your data, sorry, I would be, I,
I have concerns about any effort to correlate shot spot or
alerts with 911 calls, for exactly this reason, I, I, I
have, I have reservations about any effort to do that,
including efforts, to show which shots spot, or alerts do
not have an Associated, 911 call. I'm not, I'm not sure
it's there. I I, I worry about that. Yeah, I, I think that
that's, we identified.
Deficiency and and how the data is collected and you know
there are humans involved in this. So as you said, you
know, if the if the event number is in tracking, if the
police officer doesn't like clock in exactly when they
arrive on the scene and if it was tied to something else,
there's just so much room for error at the end of the day
agreed, um, and we don't have good enough data. Um, to I, I
think really tell us, um, more than what we know, which is
there were shot spotter alerts that went off, that could be
attributed to when first when Aid was running to people who
were in need of uh, of first aid. Absolutely. That's all.
That's all. That's it's telling you at the end of the day.
Yes. Um,
I've got 1 more question. Um,
Do we know what the criteria of the distance of a 911 call
is? Like so like if an, if a call comes in, um, you know,
did
How how did the officers?
you don't you may not know even know the answer to this
question. Um but I'm wondering like what the what the range
is because a lot of what we've talked about recently with
shot spotter, going silent. Now um is when a call comes in.
in. If someone's if I call in shots fired and I hear shots,
um, it's 1, it's 1 little ping on a map, right? So that
data and hopefully more of my neighbors are making those
calls too, but if someone calls in a domestic disturbance,
too, um, 3 blocks away, are those things that all sort of
coming together, I'm wondering what the range is like.
What's the in terms of the response like where people go
and they respond? I I think, you know, there's certainly
Some operational, questions that the department could answer
the observation. I would make there, is it probably depends
a lot on the content of those 911 calls. Right. Somebody
might call and say, I saw somebody fire a gun across the
alley from my house and here's the address that might Bode
might Bode for a very different kind of response than
somebody saying like I live at this corner and I heard what
sounds like gunshots north of me, you know, it might depend
on what somebody calls and says
Okay. Um, I I think the the issue with the data is really
the on, on a, on our part where the humans are involved,
um, because Shirley a technology like shot spotter that
only provides you what it hears at the end of the day, um,
and, and that certainly is more, uh, more accuracy than,
uh, some of the, the human, uh, the human beings that are
involved in the in call taking and then, you know, getting
to a scene, a traumatic scene and not having every bit of
that
And God knows I can understand why um that might be the
case. But I think that's you know, certainly 1 of those
places where we're going to be data driven truly, then
we're, we're going to need to make some improvements on
that end. I, I totally agree. There are lots of
improvements to be made on the data because the quality
front, the other thing I will just say is, um,
You know, we talk a lot about the importance of lived
experience and local knowledge in our work, you have
tremendous local knowledge of your Wards and your
constituents have tremendous lived experience. If the
answer here is that people think that shot spotter or a
technology like it is a good idea because that is
consistent with their experience. Even if it is not borne
out in data, then that's a policy decision for the city to
make, um, and and 1 1, that the city could make. And and,
know, if if the analysis there on a human level is in case
these 7 people got Aid, they wouldn't have already gotten
because we have this tool and that is worth the investment.
Then then we should say that out loud that should be the
yard stick and and that should guide the decision and and
I'll say it for the record I'm glad that shot spotter was
able to help save those 7 people and it wasn't the only
thing.
Thank you.
Yeah. Thank you. Uh, Al womanly and and I will just um
point out 1 other uh day to finding in the more recent uh,
analysis is that Chopper has a 99% accuracy rate. Um, we
know a shot spotter alert pinpoints, the relatively precise
location of the gunfire incident. And it turns out, in
in fact, to be gunfire not a car backfiring. It turns out
be gunfire at a rate of 99%. I don't know what the accuracy
rate is of 911 calls. I'm not sure anyone never has done
such a study but it's significantly less people call 911 in
a panic. Uh people call 911 who have never called 911
before and don't understand how you uh construct your
information.
To give the 911 call taker to stream of Consciousness. You
get the address wrong. There's all sorts of reasons why a
shot spotter alert is going to be vastly superior in
directing law enforcement and Medical Response to the
incident than a 911. Call some of our other witnesses will
have some more, uh, analysis and insight as the Inspector
General mentioned. That was beyond the purview of what she
was trying to do. So, uh, this line of questioning, I think
we should pick back up um when we have the other Witnesses
come forward and I and with that, I do want to call the
next 1 because uh, Mr. Vargas uh, is uh, Limited in his
time. He can only join us for the next 10 minutes. Uh, so
we will.
Sure.
The the 7, what what what data were you looking at? What
was that coming from? I'm looking at the slides that were
presented to the Public Safety Committee. Um,
which show it's the first slide and it shows it lists shot
spotter alerts with Aid rendered to victims from who whose
report
That's the 1 that they could. Yeah, that was from the from a
combination of CPD and uh some data that was obtained
through foyer. Those were the slides that were presented at
the at the previous on the 9th here at the committee on the
9th. That's what I'm saying because and we have cpd's data
analyst is here and and can get into that and more
specificity specificity. So thank you Inspector General,
appreciate it. I'm sorry. Allenorth. You have a question
for the inspector, okay, well, 1 more question. Okay. Thank
you.
Thank you, chair.
Hi. Hi. Thank you for all your work. Um, as
um,
The representative of the 20th district with the lowest
number of uh 9111 calls. Um we still have our issues um as
as well and um, I appreciate all your work. Um, I I do want
to say that when things do happen in Edgewater and uptown
area, we want, uh, a response from from our police
department and we're very grateful for our commanders, in
the 20th and 24th district. Um,
I also want to say that um my area a very engaged and also,
you know Public Public Safety is also a perception. So
we're working really hard to work with the commanders to
get um officers out of cars to have a better relationship
with um, our constituents of which is, uh, very diverse
across race and class
Class and um and we have many who actually need um mental
health supports. So I think that all of this
To say that. Um,
We want.
A holistic approach to Public Safety. And also we want
responsible use of our dollars of which we have very
precious. Um, limited numbers of. Um, we also want data
driven, um, responses and uh, processing and legislation.
And so I appreciate all the conversation that we're having
around um data who collects it, how we use it and what its
its purpose and the the measuring tools against it.
Um,
I want to also to say that, um, we our award that does not
have shot spotter.
But we do appreciate the technology that we do have the
resources include uh, podcast cameras, and we rely on that
very much. So, um, I also want to say that, um, I thank
people who are talking about, um,
Over policing versus Under policing in their districts, um,
for us.
People still are asking for the presence of police on our
sidewalks and our streets. So I don't want to Discount that
um, my questions.
have to do with, um,
The shot spotter report and thank you for your.
um,
your response to the report that you were just giving, um,
can you speak to
The evidence that the that you found um about the presence
of the microphones, uh, whether or not an alert happened,
um if it altered, the behavior of the Chicago police
officers in a neighborhood um,
and,
can you please talk about how it influenced officer
behavior and what were some of the
Um, anecdotes that you can share about that.
Yes, I, I'll be brief here to say that there's a section of
our 2021 report, which looks at this question of, whether
the presence of shot, spotter sensors in a district, might
alter the behavior of police officers. Alter the nature of
interactions between members of the department, and members
of the public. We found some indications in the narratives
of investigatory. Stop reports that the prevalence of shot
spotter alerts might was sometime
Times cited by officers as part of their justification for
stopping someone as part of their justification, for a
fourth amendment, intrusion might be um you know, High
shot, spotter alerts in the area that might be 1 of the
things sighted in a narrative to support uh stopping
someone. So we we we don't make any findings on that point
except to observe that. Um, there there's some indication
in in cpd's, narratives that if there are censor shots or
sensors in a location, that might impact that might be part
of the basis used to uh, to stop members of the public
okay, thank you for that and then
can you also talk about the
the overlap between your
Um, report and also shot spotters alert data.
On response times. I know we talked about response times a
little bit and um, what we can actually say about it, but
can you speak on that a little bit more? Um, well, I can
speak to our work on response times and and I, I won't
speak for for any other folks who, who have looked at the
data.
The the, um, City's data on 911 response times is from my
perspective, 2 incomplete to make responsible comparative
analyses. So, in only about half of 911 calls, do we know
how long it took for CPD to get to the scene of the
response? And in a data population? Where there is that
much missingness I think it's important to be cautious
about conclusions that were drawing. So when we were
studying 911, response times what we set out to do was a
geographic disparity analysis, the question we set out to
answer was whether it takes CPD longer to respond, to a 911
call and some neighborhoods than others, that's a concern
that we hear a lot about we. We did not do that analysis.
We stopped short of answering that question because we
found so much missingness in the data and we concluded that
we couldn't draw a reasonable responsible comparative
conclusions because there's too much data missing.
Thank you for that. Um,
I I do want to point out too that in Edgewater, we did do
an analysis of the 911 call for service in the 24th police
district. And number 1 was um,
Uh has to do with the vehicles traffic. Um anything to do
with uh hit and runs and cars and then the second 1 was um
domestic violence. So
Every Ward is very different. I just I want to point that
out too. Um,
can you talk about the
The data of dead end deployment. I know that was mentioned
in MacArthur, uh, report to and, um, and that and you also
mentioned it in your 2021 report. Um, and then the give
given the new data that has come out about, cpd's usage,
shot spotter. Um, are there any changes to the number or
percentage of dead-end, deployments as a result of the
alert? That, you know, I know know that you just got that
report.
Dead end. Deployments meaning. Meaning responses in which
nothing is recovered. Yes, yes.
um, I
I I I I don't want to speak to MacArthur's analysis there
and we don't have any updated analysis Beyond, what's in
our report?
Okay.
Um,
I guess, in terms of the last question, I will have in
terms of the cost benefits analysis can
Is there a way to?
my concern is always, where are we spending our money and
is it
To the benefit of the whole city, we don't have shots butter
in our area. And so the cost benefit analysis is very
important to me. So I'm wondering what is
How are we going to measure success?
Moving forward.
I think that is exactly the right question. That is sort of
the question that I am. I am encouraging us to frame this
conversation around um that is from my perspective, the
right question asking that question is is the sort of um
Landing Place encouraging the city to ask that question is
the landing place of our 2021 report and and my only
contribution to that conversation today. As I intended is
to say that that how we measure the benefit, depends on
what we're measuring for and, and we should determine what
benefit we are after. And then we should equip the police
department, to succeed at that task, which we identify, uh,
as, as the object as the goal.
Thank you.
Thank you, chair. Thank you.
No, she, she can stay. Um, the um, Mr. Vasquez has to
leave. So let's and I, and all I can, I can stay, but it's,
it's far, we can, we can say, okay, never mind. All right.
So, we will go to, uh, Alderman Vasquez and then, uh, back
to Alderman Moore.
Thank you, chairman. I thought you call me Mr. Vasquez, I
was feeling special. Uh, so, uh, thank you so much for
holding this hearing, uh, and thank you to inspector
whisper, as always, um, I really appreciate your clarifying
kind of the findings of the prior investigations into shot
Spotter. And his efficacy because I think
There's been a lot of.
Confusion in regards to the fact that different people
asking different questions get different answers like to
your point first was about is it preventing violence? Which
the data shows that it doesn't or it doesn't lead to the
evidence that leads to convictions, but it seems pretty
clear that there is some level of value in First Response,
even though, as you said, it goes more to CPD and not to
ambulances. I think something you said earlier about
Basically, the city and I I share this view. So if if I mix
it up I apologize that the city not knowing exactly what it
wants out of the data like knowing that at the beginning
would probably lead to better, um, choices that we make
better ways to measure success, better way to establish
metrics.
I think a lot of those lines. Did any of your research look
into like other cities? We're doing as far as like, were
they doing competitive bids? What kind of things do they
ask for similar technology? Has that ever been looked at?
We did not really look at that. Our report notes that
Chicago's original shot, spotter. Contract was not
competitively bid. It was a reference contract from from 1
entered in Louisville Kentucky but we do not we have not
really done any work on other cities use of the tool, okay?
Um
I I would imagine similarly like when we talk about cities
that we've heard like, either decommission it or any are
there, are there other similar studies related to shot?
Spotter that other cities might have done that, maybe we
could use as reference points that, you know, of.
Um, I know I I, I, I don't know. Oh, we mentioned a couple
other. I'm sorry to sort of trip over that. We mentioned a
couple of other studies from other cities in our 2021
report but we haven't done sort of a, a literature survey
since then. Sure. Um, I obviously you got tons of things
going on. I don't even know if this is something I could
ask through the chair. But if there is any of that
information that could be gleaned or any direction you
could point us in, that would be helpful. Um, because as we
try to talk about what things might look like with
technology going forward, I know there's a task force, the
administration is working on getting a sense of some of
those tools. Whether it's similar rfps, um, might be
helpful for us so that we are more Mindful and thoughtful.
When we think about technology, we might use in the future.
So that's, that's really all I've got. I don't know if
that's in your capacity or provide anything but just want
to throw that 1 out there.
I don't I don't have anything else to offer on on the other
cities, although I'd be happy to talk about that further.
If we come across anything, we're happy to pass it along
through the chair. Okay. Thank you so much. It's all good.
Thank you. Uh, Alderman, Moore followed by Alderman Lopez.
Thank, thank you chair. And I just want to be clear. It's
May be what um, automat Hopper was stating but I just want
to be clear. Because when my question was going to be,
before she stated what she said was although
I never heard that shot spotter was supposed to been a um
crime prevention like solving crime tool and although it
does help with it because I know out there and I'm living
it, I gave plenty of examples of somebody shooting, they
get there and then there's no retaliation. You'll never
capture that in a data, that's truly happening out there.
So you're never captured that in a data but given that
because we want to put our money, like we say where things
are working, what tool or strategy is leading to arrests
based on all your analysis.
um,
That's a good question. And I don't have, um,
I'm not, I'm not advocating for position here on shots
better. I'm closing an alternative. I, I will say, I think
that efforts to improve the relationship between the police
department and the community result in better, Public
Safety efforts, I think that we solve more crimes, when
people have a better relationship with the police because
people trust the police and they will give them information
I think so. So I say let me just hold let me just hold you
right there. Yeah I read that for you. I don't want to
convolute that and I believe that too. Yeah. Do you have
some data that says that
In terms of that.
Because of this, we've solved these crimes.
In the spirit of this.
Anecdotal data that you talked about, I was a Cook County
prosecutor before I did this work and it was my experience
doing that, that we did not get convictions because of
police officer happened to be standing on a street corner
to see something that happened. We closed cases because
somebody trusted a police officer enough to tell them what
happened. Okay? And so and so there's no clear data from
where we spend money and we're talking about spending money
of of 2 or strategy that solving crime. We have not looked
at that question. There is research on the effectiveness of
of community violence intervention programs. We have not
done that work. I that's not an analysis we've done. Okay,
we need to do that because I want to know what would I'll
put the money wherever
Crimes are being solved at but we don't have that data and I
don't want to speculate something. And then my then my last
last thing chairman is that I want to, I don't want to
leave that number 7. Number based on, I think it was a
6-month period.
Because when I'm looking at here with that same data from
January the 1st to July 30, January 1st of 2023 to July
31st 2024 shot spotter with no 911 calls 91.
91 lives, non-fatal and Save.
so I need so I can I can talk about 2 days that and be like
oh yeah, you see but if I get data over time
That's when I can make a, a a a greater better analysis,
and and and, and a better Rapport. That's 91 people.
So let's leave that not here with 7 but 91 over 1 year.
Thank you so much. I believe I agreed I believe that's a
year and a half. I believe it's the beginning of 2023
through the middle of 2024. So I think 18 months, right
year and a half, right? You're right. Thank you for
correcting me year and a half even agreed. Thank you. Okay.
Almond Lopez
Thank you. Chairman I just something real brief um and I
want to thank the Inspector General for her on the Fly
comments on this topic. Um, but I think you touched on
something that's very important is that we can't make
decisions without enough data. Correct. And that nobody can
clearly make any kind of
Statement, um, because we have incomplete information,
correct?
Roughly speaking. Well I I it's not that we can't make any
decision without enough data. It's that we can't make a
data driven 1 and and if where we get to is, we need to
make a policy decision in the absence. So we cannot make a,
a, a, a a
Materially factual statement.
Without incomplete without complete data.
Correct, I think we can't make a data driven decision
without data. I agree and a data driven decision is a
materially factual decision because it's based on fact. Um,
What is a fact for 1 of my co for 1 of the comments that I
heard earlier is that you know, the expectation and I think
you will alluded to this as well. Um, has changed
Um, I don't believe that's the case because as I look in
this room, there are only 3 of us in this room that
actually had shot spotter from the very beginning. Um, on
the set in the seventh and eleventh police districts that
would be uh,
Me my colleague, uh, from the 17th and my colleague from the
28th warts. We were the only ones in this room who were
there when this technology came, when sdsc rooms came, we
were there. When I believe it was Eddie Johnson and Rahm
Emanuel. Invited us to see how this works. And there was
never an expectation that this was going to be something
that stopped people from shooting. It was just going to
allow us to know where to go. The only thing that is really
changed in those years. It's not the technology, it's the
politicians.
And the expectation that we're getting from politicians on
something that they clearly do not understand. Even until
this day,
To hear anyone in this room or we make settlement cases
every single day. Trying to justify how 8 million dollars
is too much money to save 90 lives.
Imagine what we're going to pay next.
When we know.
That.
Even just getting hit by a truck is going to get you a
million dollars from the city of Chicago. Imagine what? No
9111 p. No police comes when you get shot.
Additionally, I don't even know how we're going to figure
out crime is because with just yesterday, we had someone
shot in the Seventh District, who self-reported to Cook
County Hospital told the police. Oh, I was shot at 603 in
Carpenter even though there was no calls for 911. No
bullets, no nothing. But yet now, we're going to talk about
wild goose chases. Now, we're trying to figure that out,
based on someone who's presumably telling us where he
legitimately was shot and that's simply not going to
happen.
I think that your testimony just speaking to the fact that
we don't collect enough to make educated data-driven
decisions. Um, speaks volume to the narrative that we keep
hearing from individuals who are intentionally
misrepresenting the outcomes that we are seeing. And that
is not only dangerous, but I will point out the fact that
it is illegal in the city of Chicago to make false
statements. As a matter of material, fact, by anyone in
this room, or in this body, or in this building. And I
think that, that is something that we need to be very
cognizant of, as we're having this discussion because
generalizations and opinion do not count. As fact, when
you're dealing with people's lives, thank you.
Alderwoman Fuentes.
Thank you. Uh, chairman I, I just want to point out because
this dangerous to sort of set precedents that a narrative
is being created by new electives and that we're not rooted
in fact because on October 26th 2017, mayor Rahm Emanuel
issued, a press conference. That I a press statement that I
have here that I can give you that call shot. Spotter a
predictive crime strategy, technology that will reduce
crime.
And allow CPD officers to predict in fact, where crime is
committed in the city of Chicago. That is not the function
of shot Spotter. And so it's not a narrative that we're
creating, I mean, it's in the Press statement. That Rahm
Emanuel released on October 26, 2017. When he signed the
contract and announced to the city of Chicago that he was
bringing this technology and SDC rooms to the 17th
District. And so I just
Let's be clear, right? That there was a narrative, there
was sort of this marketing strategy that had been offered
to government that this particular technology can, in fact,
prevent crime, we know that it's sort of an alert that
allows CPD officers to respond to things that are
happening. I'm not saying that it is not value there, right
there is, but I don't want to conflate narratives that
people have made this up. It is in writing by then mayor
Rahm Emanuel.
Yeah, we so I mean this this uh this is an important line
of questioning but it's it's really not for the Inspector
Inspector General to to referee. We actually have the data
from the Chicago, Police Department here, who can talk
about the fact that they used this data uh, for predictive
purposes that they can use it as an analytical tool to see
where gunfire is coming from what neighborhoods, it's
coming from. They go so far as to, uh, correlate it with
known, uh, uh, territory disputes between gangs. There's
all sorts of things that are
Actually happening and it's not the inspector General's, uh,
uh, role to opine on that. So we, we will get to that. I'm
trying to make sure everyone has their opportunity to
present her with questions, so we can then go on to the uh,
next phase of this discussion where we can get into that
with people who are equipped to answer it. So any other
questions for the Inspector General?
Thank you. Thank you, chairman. And I appreciate, I really
appreciate your time here. Absolutely. I I appreciate the
invitation to, uh, to stay involved in this conversation.
Thank you for your time. Okay. And with that, we will, uh,
since we're we're into it now and, uh, since uh, Mr. Vargas
has indicated, he can stay. So thank you for that. Uh, we
will bring up uh, Noe Flores from the Chicago Police
Department who uh, is a subject matter expert on the uh,
Gathering and Analysis of their data. Um, noi. Would you
please join us up here?
I think I woke up late.
Thank you Alderman, you everyone.
Um, I don't have a presentation per se on the, uh, data
collection of shot spotter. But I know, uh, since I was
last here we have, published the, uh, public facing
dashboard with all the various metrics that were, uh, asked
for as part of the city council's request. Um, I do have
some updated metrics to go over with everyone as questions
arise and, uh, I'm happy to answer questions as they come
along. That's okay. Very good. Let's pick up our way. Just
left off then. Can you describe the extent to which data
provided by shots about our system? Uh can be used or or
has been used um as a predictive tool or as an analytical
tool to look at where uh gunfire is occurring uh and and
geographically connected to policing strategies. Uh does it
inform those policing strategies does? It potentially
change them. How do we use the data other than sending a
car with flashing blue lights to an intersection where
gunfire has occurred? Yeah, and I'll do my best. So um I
was 1 of the first
analysts working with the crime lab to open the sdsc rooms
um and 1 of the 1 of the best things about um the shots
about our data is obviously and just to stress the
importance of it is the
the consistency with the location where things are
happening, right? So we we very confident that we know when
we hit the alert that it's happening, where it says it's
happening, and we use that information in the sdsc rooms as
part of a strategy to uh, build different
If you would say maybe missions uh uh specific to a certain
gang conflict to a certain uh, increase in shootings. Uh,
we use that and tie it into other information, such as
calls for service human intelligence. And we use all of
that to kind of build these kind of focus areas. Um, but
the, the benefit is that we are confident in the location.
We're given from shot spotter to build kind of those
missions to, uh, hopefully drive down those future, uh,
increases in violence or shootings.
Okay, thank you. Um,
Alderman. Ervin.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, um,
Where has the department? Um,
From an analytical perspective.
Uh done.
what, um,
Alderman Fuentes brought as part of the rationale for
acquisition of the of the system.
in whole or in part, uh, where have we
Done that. Um,
I'm not sure. Uh, I understand. So,
I'll give you an example. Um,
example, I spoke in the testimony, when, uh, we had this
conversation at our last meeting, the work that I saw
happened in the 15th district, for example, uh, using shot
spotter as a predictive. Um,
Thought as to how to place resources, how to do things with
it. I thought Commander Parham and Sergeant Roa in 15 did a
great job on doing that. What I didn't see is the same
thing happened in 11 1012 and other districts uh, that are
represented on the west side. So my question ultimately is
why isn't the department or why didn't or hadn't the
department took that level of intelligence and applied it
in what I consider to be some of our most violent
communities such as 11 such as Englewood. Um, what
happened? Uh, well, just, I, I don't mean to push back but
having been the analyst in 11,
uh, early early days, I can tell you that we were doing some
of that same analysis and Commander Parham is he's a friend
of mine, um, but a lot of the similar things that they're
doing at 15 are things that we've stressed in the training
of the sdsc rooms in the orders and what they should do in
terms of building analytics building missions. Also a lot
of that stuff is happening in those rooms. I don't know why
it's not uh maybe perhaps being conveyed uh enough but I
can I mean the the the see the numbers in 15 from 2023,
versus 222212020. I mean, the the, the it's there, I I I I
see it. I can feel it in 15 in Austin. I don't feel that in
11. I don't feel that in 10. I don't feel that in 12. I'm
just trying to understand why that level of of, I, I won't
call it intelligence, but that level of application has
been done in
other places and I don't know if it's you know just you
know Commander parhams is is is is into it a little more
than others or the team over there is in a little, is a
little into it more than others. I'm just trying to
understand that, you know,
Why we don't see that in other communities? Yeah, so again I
I can tell you for sure that the primary function of all
these SDSU rooms, whether they have Shots by, or they don't
have shot, spotter is to drive down crime, through
integrating data, intelligence and Technology, right? Um
the fact that uh, 1 room or 1 District maybe had better
results, I don't think you could attribute it all to shot
spotter. I'm sure it's a, it's a heavy component because I
know they're making use of it, but there may be some other
factors that I'm not aware of, that may be helped Drive
of those decreases that were. And and I, I know what you're
talking about very specifically because I talked to
Commander, Parham regularly, I know they were doing a great
job there. Um I haven't dug into see exactly what it was.
that may be led to that bigger drop in 15 to other
districts. But I know Citywide we obviously were
experienced a drop a reduction gun violence in the past few
years. So
Uh, thank you Alderman. Ervin, uh, can you, uh, can you do
a better job of describing the process for uh, identifying
and possibly correlating a 911 call to a known shot spotter
alert, we have a universe of shot spotter alerts. That's
very specific. We know what that is, and then you have a
much more nebulous population of potential, 911 calls, uh,
that could be matched. What are the criteria that you look
at when trying to make a determination? If a 911 call
should be connected to a shot spotter alert or if it uh you
know if it possibly has another explanation. Yeah. No so it
it's pretty straight forward.
And I would say that this data in is actually generated at
oemc but let's say the shots bar alert happens, they create
the event number. Um and then we'll say uh or maybe it's me
and you out there we hear shots fired. We call 911 as well.
The 911 operator already has that initial event type. What
type. What they begin to do is create, uh, cross reference
events and they are actually Tied by that initial event.
event. And that's how we kind of tie everything together.
So, uh, and it doesn't have to be an actual shots fire
call. It could be that there's a shot spot alert and then
there's a robbery in progress call that they attribute to
maybe a similar geography. But that, that kind of, uh,
attribution of where those events get cross reference are
linked to each other. How is that oemc? Okay, does distance
come into play, where we know the location of the shot
spotter alert. Uh, and then the 911 caller identifies
either where they are calling from, or where they think the
incident that they're calling about, uh, took place. Do we
look for tying these Geographic points together? I don't,
that's probably
a better question for oemc to answer or somebody from oemc.
What I can say is just from experience, uh, with shots
fired calls that are that, that come in
I mean, you could see ranges of upwards of a mile, uh, very
frequently. So I don't know if there's a buffer that says
if it's over a mile we we we attribute it to something else
but I think that's a question that's better answered by
somebody from oemc other woman find test
Thank you, chairman, and thank you for being here and
holding on site. I imagine it's going to be a long hearing
so I do appreciate your time and sort of like you're going
to bring here today.
Can you share with us? Uh what CPD has independently found
in terms of shot? Spotters accuracy.
yeah, so I think in terms of accuracy, we've always been
very uh, confident in uh, what we get from shop spotter in
terms of where their alerts and their locations of uh, of
the uh, of of the initial incidents, right? Um, I will say
and and to kind of tie everything together of, uh,
A lot of shots but alerts leading to maybe no police action
type of events. Um I mean that is true uh just to give kind
kind of maybe some a little kind of just perspective on it
very similar uh a very similar Cadence occurs when you have
have regular shots fired calls, right? A lot of those shots
fired calls generated by 1, but just somebody picking up a
phone also, uh, end up with no police action, right? So,
um, and there could be a lot of reasons why there was no
police action, right? It it's we've talked about it here
today, we're short staff. People are on the Run, they're
going from call to call. It is a 80 foot, kind of radius
that shots butter gives us. Maybe they could pull up to the
scene. They don't see anybody. They don't see any immediate
evidence of a crime and they move on. It doesn't
necessarily well. In our case, we don't think it means that
there was no crime. It just means that in that moment. Uh,
these officers were not able to locate any evidence of a
crime
Thank you. I appreciate that, answer. Uh, we know that shot
spotter. Uh, can be seen as sort of a device that can save
lives, right? You get the sort of alert. Uh, folks can come
to the scene. If there is someone bleeding out that sort of
timely timeliness, really matters. Uh, in your opinion, do
you believe shot? Spotter is a tool. That should be uh
marketed to uh cfd and EMS.
Um, that's a policy decision. I would say I would say that
cfd and EMS. I, I just don't know how, uh,
How you get them to respond to a possible active crime
scene, right essentially? That's what it comes down to
typically, you need somebody to go in and secure the scene,
make sure everything's okay. And then, maybe some, uh,
first responder can show up, but that that's kind of
somebody else. May may be better suited, but that, that
would be kind of a policy decision. I think that would need
to be made
Thank you. Uh do you know how many uh police involved
shootings? They have. There have been this year off the top
of my head. No, I do not.
Do you know if uh police involved shootings are also
classified within the shot spot or alert?
Uh, yeah, I mean shot spotter would pick up and I believe
Copa up until we all had access to all the shot spot alert
date as well.
Yep. Um, in terms of response times what has been the
longest response time? There has been between the time of a
shot spotter alert and the time of officers arriving on
scene.
I don't know specifically the longest response time, I know
on average, we, uh, and I have it here. I think the
response time goes from, uh,
Um like about 9.6 uh minutes to is about the average
response time. I don't know what the longest response time
is. I imagine there's a
That's something we could check. And if it's a request with
the chair, I'll be sure to get it for you. Yeah. Both the
questions around police involved, shootings this year and
then sort of what we've seen the longest response time. Uh,
for CPD arriving on scene from a shot spot alert before we
get to that. Thank you. I appreciate that. And then my last
question here Cher, if it's okay with you. Uh how does CPD
close out and classify responses. 2 Shot, spotter shot,
spotter alerts. When they find no evidence of a gun crime,
you had talked about that. Sometimes that's a possibility,
right? And it's not just for shot spotter. It's also a 911
Cos what sort of the classification that uh goes to uh the
the report for responding to those alerts? Yeah. Typically
in Alderman, Chico would probably know it's, it's like a 19
Paul or 19. Boy, usually gets coded out, maybe 19 atom,
which is like a, it's not not modified, but 1 of those 19,
Paul 19 boy, this designations
Okay. And can we get the specifics through the chair?
Absolutely, yeah, yeah. I could get you the data.
Fantastic. And then, how often maybe buy a ballpark
percentage. Do you think this happens?
Uh, for shot spot or for calls for service or shots fired
or both, both both separately. Um, I would say in terms of
getting some 19, Paul 19 boy distinction. It's probably 80%
of the time for both roundabouts 80% of the time for both.
For both right. Shot spot alert or calls for service shots
fired. Thank you. Yeah, I'll do my Chico.
Thank you, chair. Um, I understand you were an analyst and
what district was it? I worked in 112517, I work. I was all
over the place. Can you Enlighten us on how my analyst a
Dio District intelligence officer and the SDS serum
officers trying to collaborate and work together to use the
data that's being provided and help uh, deter crime? Yeah.
So uh, and I think I touched on a little earlier uh, the
primary function of these rooms was to integrate, uh, the
data, the technology, and the human intelligence, in 1, uh,
kind of localized. And if you will decentralize location
for police to have a better management tool for the
district commanders. Um, So within that room, you will have
2, uh, sworn members a room Sergeant, uh, uh, civilian
intelligence analysts, and the diyos come in and
collaborate, uh, the dcos as well, just a coordination
officers will come in caps teams. Uh, so essentially what
you're trying to do or essentially, what I would try to do,
um, is try to combine.
uh, the data analytics with the human intelligence and kind
of paint the picture of what was happening within my
specific District, or within my neighboring districts to
that effect,
and,
How how, how valuable is that information? When a Commander
goes to comstat? And he has to, you know, basically
articulate.
Uh, where he's sending our resources at. How does that play
into the commander getting up in front of superintendent
and talking about, uh, how we're combating crime in that
particular District? Yes. So, 1 of the regular things that
we review at caumsett is, uh, obviously, we there's reviews
of GPS, locations of mission activity, and the commander
will essentially be asked to review. Um, where they're
running their work, where they where they have their
missions, where they have their cars, is it in the
appropriate spot? Is there a better spot for them? So, all
that is kind of part of the accounting process of comps
that.
In terms of community policing and caption meetings.
um, when when we highlight Shots by their alerts and and
shootings and those caps meetings, how important is that to
relate to the community and give give them a sense of of
capture, a sense of what's going on and how we're combating
it.
Yeah. So I actually a great example of this when I worked
in. Uh the 25th district, uh, the room Sergeant there. Uh,
was fantastic. Uh, so 1 of the 1 of the things he would do
is, we'd know, there was a problem area, right? And we know
we're getting a, a large number of shot spot alerts and if
we didn't have the corresponding, uh, 911 calls be it for
not, maybe just for shots fired, but maybe for a Narcotics
activity or maybe some other activity that we know is a
problem in that neighborhood. Uh, he would actually
coordinate with the cap sergeant and say, hey can you guys
you know, go down to this beach and maybe not on some doors
because we see the data, we know things are happening but
we're not getting that feedback from the community. So he
would coordinate. Then with the uh the Caps office to make
sure they went out and maybe did door to doors and kind of
inform the residents or see what was going on. See if
there's some service that could provide and uh, and I guess
1 last question your professional experience. When when the
shots by the data comes across,
and,
we have to send, uh,
Our officers, you know, the tech teams, they work, 1 Tag
Team every shift and we have to be careful and deliberate
how we're deploying them. How important was that
information in terms of working with the Dio and and, and
directing our tag teams to the proper locations to get the
most out of it and and really the uh, deter the violence.
Yeah. Um, yeah. And I think it's all tight. I think part of
the, what we use the shot spotter for is again, the room to
build, you know, uh, crime reduction, um,
Uh, have a service to the community but also it's officer
safety, right? Uh, we need to keep our officers informed,
we need to make sure they get back safe and we use that
shot spotter data to keep them. Informed of where there's
potential flare-ups, where there's an increase in events.
Um, 1 of the things we used to track in the 11 districts
where we see large increases, uh, so it's 2 things there.
You, you may be adjust your deployments, but you also make
the officers aware that work in those beats. Say we've seen
a a spike in activity here. So you know just make sure
you're careful. When you're out there, patrolling be aware
that these things are happening in your beat. So all that's
kind of tied together. And also too, I wanted to add um,
close it up with this when we see.
2 districts and we see border conflicts between 2, 2 SE
games. And we see,
An uptick in shots fired here.
and we might not necessarily see them in our district, but
we see it in the district we border
That's pretty valuable information to alert. The next door,
our next door, neighbors, on the consulate, going on the
uptick rising and making sure our resources are being
deployed in the correct locations. Absolutely, yes. And
there is a lot of communication, uh, especially in the
neighboring sdsc rooms, uh, but also across the city right
there. Uh, and again, back to my experience in 25, there's
been plenty of cases where we took ballistic information
and we realized that the guns were being used on the south
side and then they were being used on the northwest side.
Um, that's available information. We could share across the
city and across the loops. Thank you. Thank you.
Along those lines. Is there any data to support the claim
that, uh,
providing officers with knowledge that they're responding
to a situation where uh, shots were fired and that uh, you
know, it was an active shooter, uh, has a detrimental
effect on the responding officers Behavior.
Um, I don't know if I'm the best person to answer that
Alderman. I I just what I can say is, I think it is
beneficial information to know that you are
in most most likely respondents to some kind of shooting
event where there is the potential for danger. Okay yeah
and of course the extension of that argument would suggest
that if we have knowledge that an officer is responding to
a situation where a weapon was fired and we intentionally
withhold that knowledge uh wouldn't necessarily need data
to support the argument that that is uh full hearty to say
the least. And I I don't think that is a morally defensible
defensible if we make that determination. And that's an
argument extension of the, uh, argument that we heard from
the MacArthur Center, uh, you know, that providing officers
with knowledge that they're going into a situation where
guns were fired. Uh, is somehow a Bad Thing Alderman Lopez.
Thank you, chairman. I actually just have
A different question.
We keep talking about when we use shot spot or use shot
spotter. We don't have shot spotter anymore.
So we have to refer to this in the past tense.
um, and we've already seen where in districts that formerly
had it
We had the very first day officers Came Upon someone who
was shot.
With no 911 call. And then we had another 1 in New City at
52nd in wood.
Yesterday.
where again technology that would have helped bring us to
that person was there, and it's not
What I've heard from many people, is that.
Community.
And police relations is what's going to replace?
technology right, we've heard that time and again where
that's I guess that's like the uh Pie in the Sky goal
tomorrow. That somehow magically we're all going to join
hands again.
Caps meetings.
Right. How many districts have caps meetings on a monthly
basis?
Um, I don't know. I mean, they're all required to have caps
meetings, obvious. Well, hold on. Choose your words
carefully, my friend because just because you're required
to have them doesn't mean you do and you're not and most
districts don't have them monthly.
We've seen where camps meetings are now every other month or
every quarter, um, we've seen where camps meetings are
canceled.
Consistently. Thank you. I was going to say something else.
But how do you build?
Community relations. When you don't even have meetings with
the community consistently,
And I think what I'd like you to provide through the chair
is a list of every District.
When every beats camps meetings are and how often they've
met over the last 18 months, we'll go last 14 months, which
would be just about the same amount of time that we've been
holding shots, spotter to that standard because I think
what we're going to find out is that 1
A third of these so-called camps meetings, never exist.
2, it was my next 1.
Also provide us with the attendance rosters for these
meetings because I have gone to camps meetings in both in 7
and 8 and 9 I have publicized the crap out of these
meetings and often times it's me and my staff sitting with
an officer and nobody shows up.
In part because Camp's offices are not doing what they need
to do. Currently,
So how are you going to expect this to magically switch
over especially at a time where we just had in our area? 1
meeting yesterday? What's the plan to get people to start
calling 911 again?
We have gotten away from having caps meetings. Our senior
meetings are inconsistent. Our community engagement
meetings are not necessarily their. Our dcos are are
district officers, which was the brainchild of the last
Super 2 superintendents ago who's back in Texas. Now that
was an inconsistent role out. So all of these
inconsistencies are going to bring us to a point where we
can't actually pick up.
when technology is no longer there,
so I'd like to know in the districts with the dcos, how
many are there where the Caps are, where the meetings are
the attendants and an explanation of what the uh, CPD as a
whole is going to do, in terms of a marketing campaign to
get 911 calls made again.
Because we could talk about technology in the past tense,
it's going to be at least 8 months before we see any
replacement.
6 months for a PDF.
No 1's going to be able to qualify because the parameters
are so off-the-wall.
Going to issue it again. Somebody will get picked. It'll
take 6 months after that to be installed and in the
meantime we're going to have another year where no 1's
calling, for the bodies on the street. So I think let's
figure out where we're at because I think it's going to be
incumbent on all of us to pick up the slack and start, uh,
making sure that these meetings are happening monthly,
these meetings are happening when people want to come out
particularly when you look in some of the districts that
are most heavily impacted where seniors don't want to come
out when it's night out and all of your caps meetings are
at 7:00 at night. No wonder. No 1 comes to these meetings.
So let's let's have a, a an explanation of where we're at so
that we can give you a direction on where you need to go.
Thank you.
Thank you Alderman, Lopez. We will compile uh, the
information regarding caps and provided to the members of
The Joint Committee. Uh, thank you Mr. Flores, appreciate
your time today and, uh, your analysis. Uh, the next
speaker, who does have a presentation, so, I'm going to,
uh, call him for. I'm, oh, I'm sorry. Alderman, Mark, go
ahead. I thought you had saw it. I apologize. I didn't see
you. Go ahead.
help me, understand and
9111 calls, right? And I may be using the wrong terminology
but they are
um,
Assigned collectively. So if if you got a, if someone calls
911, and they says a dog bark or something like that or or
there's somebody playing music but then there's a shot
spotter call, that doesn't get a corresponding 911 call.
But that officer is going to that shot spotter call, isn't
it? Sometimes these
That 911 call with the dog is also giving to that officer
with the shot spotter.
Um,
I guess, uh, in the world.
Of how they would.
kind of clarify it maybe but I don't think that's generally
the case I will say when we pull the data and we say
there's a corresponding 911 call, we are very very much
if there's a corresponding 911 call that is getting the uh
patrolman to the scene that is not necessarily A shots
fired 911, call or so to speak a, you get a shot spot
alert. Maybe a corresponding shots fired call from somebody
on the phone. This is I heard shots somewhere. Um, let's
say it could be a robbery job in progress and then that
turns you get a shot spotter because it turns into, you
know, some kind of gun involved robbery in progress. If
that robbery in progress was the initiating factor. That
will probably be uh, cross reference to that shot spot
alert if it's the same location. So you're saying, there
are no
calls that are assigned to an officer collectively
together. That if there's a shot spotter call no
corresponding 911 call.
But it may be in the area where he got.
The.
911 call for dogs barking or music playing loud. You do not
assign.
Those as he's going to that shot spotter call, you don't
assign that 911 call.
To that officer. I mean, oh,
Again that's kind of that's probably a better question to
get concretely from oemc, but I do not think that's what
happens. Uh, but I could be wrong, but I would say oemc is
probably a better, uh, again there. It's really their data
that we use, um, but I don't think they get, uh, calls, uh,
like that. Uh,
Kind of grouped up together. Yeah. All right. Thank you.
And then my last 1, the sdsc room.
I know there's increased activity in the sdsc room with
shot spotter without shot spotter. Then
How?
I want I don't know what he's what effective but how much
how utilized is the sdsc room without shot spotter?
It's, it's still like I said earlier, the primary goal
Remains the Same. The SDC rooms were made to uh in an
effort uh to drive down crime through the integration of
data technology and the human intelligence. We have 10
rooms fully operational across the city that don't have
sdsc rooms that are functioning in that capacity and and by
all accounts doing a great job. So, uh, the shot spotter
was it. I won't sure going to say it was not a useful tool,
it was a very useful tool, right? Especially in terms of
the location of and and the knowledge of where things were
happening. Um, the rooms we we've already started to kind
of talk about ways to Pivot ways to uh, make the uh, the
shots better.
We collected uh kind of extend the utility of it beyond the
the expiration date, but the the goals of the rooms will
not change. The the rooms will be continued to function as
as they are. Uh, they will obviously, they'll they'll Zig
and zag, but the, the the goals change does not change. Do
you know how much we spend on the sdsc room, by any chance
in terms of construction or in terms of Staffing? I mean
staff. There's a cost to running it. There's a cost. Yeah,
I'm not off the top of my head, okay? And and I don't know
if that's a question for the Inspector General who and, um,
in terms of how many arrests,
Are.
as a result of the sdsc role,
Yeah, I don't know if we attribute it, uh, specifically to
rooms but we definitely obviously, we have ways of
and rusted shots, spot events to pod cameras, right? The
stuff of that. I'm talking about to the sdsc room because
we spend that money on sdsc room. So I'm asking do I need
to get rid of it because I'm not
Getting a rest from it. No no no. Like I said, okay I think
there's obviously a lot of different utilities for that.
Thank you. You answered my question, right?
Okay, question from okay. Uh, Alderman Mitchell. Yeah, thank
you shun. Um,
Kind of continuing on David kind of uh, ottoman, more kind
of took some my sentiment, all right.
911. And I do realize you're not oemc, but from your
experience.
Helped me understand something. A 91 call goes in that goes
to a dispatch, and then it's dispatched out, correct. It's
the most simplest form, that's what happens. Okay. Do you
based on your experience?
Can you opine on the delay of the 91 call versus
A call or shootings that come through that are that are
recognized, and in, in the, in the computer rooms alert,
them to that shot. How quick is the delay between the
officer? Being able to respond versus 911 versus shot
spotter.
Um so I think there there's there's a lot of factors that
play obviously right? Um
Like as an example, if we were outside and I saw somebody
get shot I'm going to pick up the phone and say, hey I just
saw somebody a person get shot that's going to be pretty
Direct.
Uh in that case, a shot spotter alert is going to go
through their Quality Control process. So there's going to
be a 60 second delay uh as you see from the data, a lot of
these events don't have that 911 call. So uh in that sense
the shot spot alert is going to be the best or the initial
kind of okay alert. Yeah, all right. Um, because what what
what I was getting at is, you know?
There's technology.
I I'm I'm a former it guy and I utilize technology for a
lot of different ways and Technology definitely has an
ability to uh, to to, to, uh, lengthen the time in which
you're able to respond to things and in being in when
especially when you're dealing with money because that's
the industry outcomes from to be able to be alerted to when
the issues happen. So money is not affected.
That's that's, that's, that's a perfect, go and, and in
this case lives, I equate them. Both the same. If we can
have a tool where lives, uh, where the, the, the the, the,
the the the the, the the, the long, the time between a
response.
Uh, and when it was reported can be shortened, we want to,
we want to support that in a tool so that's why I bought
that up. Yeah, yeah. And which makes sense to me. Yeah.
Obviously in the second thing just want to mention the the
the the sdsc rooms I've been in my rooms and I've watched
I've been there when shot spot alerted. I've been there
with my Pine cameras, I sat there and I watched and
arrested that that room is very, very, very helpful when it
comes to arrest. I mean, we've seen things in that room on
our cameras and we immediately send people over and we
catch them right in the act. So technology has proven to be
a huge, uh, benefit to the, to the fourth district in which
which you know just is it basically predominantly covers my
ward. Ugh, 3/4 of it actually. Um and I work very closely.
With them, but the technology in that room, what we have in
in, in our corridors, in the way of Pi cameras and other
other technology with Shaw, Sparta, we have done a great
job in being able to respond, being able to strategize. Um,
and and and so I mean it's a tool that
Unfortunately, we're going to miss ya, your point is valid
Alderman Mitchell and those of us who have SDS serums in
our Wards as I do and know how they operate their, their
frequently. Proactive. They're watching at all times and
very often they will, uh, provide information on a
real-time basis to the patrol officers who are responding
to assist them and if that makes an arrest and make an
arrest, that's not going to show up in any sort of data,
There's no special category for the SDS serum made a call
or, you know, provided some information. But we know what
happens, uh, it, it certain happens and I would argue,
they're very cost-effective, um, um, um, you know, uh,
tools to have so. Yeah. And I will say that is information.
We can, we can't provide pot related to the rest. If that's
something, the the
Say that again we could provide a rest related to podcast.
Okay. Okay, okay that's something. We can't provide. All
right, so thank, thank you Mrs. For your presentation, we'd
like to invite uh Mr Ludwig to join us. He does have uh,
some slides as part of his presentation. So do we uh do we
have those queued up on the laptop? He can do it from up
here.
Thank you for your patience. I appreciate it. I'm sure it
was uh, insightful information for you and and your work.
Um, and I know you would published a report recently that
you can touch on as we pull up your, uh, presentation.
um,
Uh, thanks very much for having me, should I?
Should I go ahead and start, please? Okay, perfect. Thanks,
uh, thanks very much. Just take your name for the record,
uh, yens Ludwig, University of uh, of Chicago. So let me
just start off with a um uh, you high level points. I'm not
not going to make a recommendation about what the city
should do with shot spotter. That's not my role. I'm going
and recap my best reading of the evidence about what we
know about the benefits and costs of the technology. I can
also see why this is so controversial. This is uh we can
see in the survey data for the public gun violence is the
number 1 concern of people who live in Chicago, it's very
personal for me. I live on the south side of Chicago and
was held up at gunpoint, picking my daughter up from piano
piano lessons, several years ago. So this is a, this is a
real thing for many of us here in the room. I can also see
that there are a number of reasonable concerns here. Um,
lots of people distrust, big tech for very understandable
reasons,
There's a lot of concern. We've already heard this in the
previous sections about whether Chicago has over policed
the disproportionate impacts of different law enforcement
activities and we live in a world in which we don't have
very much government regulation of Technologies like like
shot spotter. So there's these Technologies are being
deployed without something like an FDA type agency.
Requiring that it be evaluated before it's distributed out
in the public. So we don't know very much as we've heard
over the course of the day about what the net consequences
are of the technology. And so when I look at, when I've
been looking around at the conversation, I think part of
the challenge.
Is we've seen too many 1-sided, benefit cost calculations a
focus either on the benefits or the costs of the
technology. So for instance, if you go to the sound
thinking website, you'll see a letter from a bunch of
police Chiefs saying, this thing is great, it gets officers
to scenes more quickly. That's just 1 piece of the puzzle.
Um, as was mentioned in a previous section. The, uh,
inspector General's office here in Chicago, did a report
several years ago, pointing out that only something like 9%
of shots spot or alerts lead to evidence?
I think that's a very incomplete part of the picture too,
you know. Um, if you look at a very different field like
medicine, we do things like cancer screening, where just a
modest share of the people we screen for cancer of cancer,
detected. We don't take that as a sufficient argument
against screening for cancer because we ask questions like
how much does this? What is the screening costing us and
how does that compare to the value to society from
detecting these cancer cases? And so I think that motivated
us to try and assemble the best research that's out there
and and some original data analysis to look at both sides
of the equation. So I just want to spend a couple minutes
talking about what we know about the benefits and costs. So
if you look at the average value of the shot, spotter
contract to the city and update things for inflation to
2024 dollars. It's averaged somewhere in the neighborhood
of 7 to 10 million dollars a year.
But it's not just dollars that are the costs to the city.
It's also unintended consequences of the technology which
are not, uh, unheard of with any technology. So WBEZ
interviewed, uh, an economist named Michael topper the
other day about his research, that shows that there is a
real opportunity cost to having officers respond to dead.
End shot spotter alerts. Um it slows down response times to
non-gun calls um, as the Inspector General noted during her
session the data on response times aren't ideal but that
seems to be what we see in the data and
It also reduces the number of arrests that police wind up
making for non-gun calls. Now that is a impact that happens
holding police resources constant 1 way that you could
mitigate that consequence is by getting rid of shot.
Spotter a different way that in principle, you could
mitigate that consequence is to increase police Staffing.
So they could both respond to shots, fired calls and
respondent on Gun calls as well. That's a policy decision
for the city of obviously
Um the third type of potential cost with the shot spotter
technology came up in the previous session and this is just
something that unfortunately we don't have any data about
right now which is uh the possibility that there are shot.
Well we know that there are false positive shot spot or
alerts shot spotter goes off. It's not really a gunshot.
It's a firework or something else. And police show up
thinking that they're responding to a a call for gunfire
and something goes sideways. Because of that fact we don't
know how often that happens. And we don't know exactly how
sideways the police responses go when that does uh happen.
So we know that that in principle is a potential concern.
We just don't have any data on that unfortunately, right
now, uh, or at least I haven't seen any data on that
myself. Okay, on the potential benefits side in the
previous session, there was some questions about whether
other other cities have implemented shot Spotter and
whether people have done research on that and the answer
Is yes. Uh, there's a recent literature review that looks at
all of the different, uh, studies of deployments of shot.
Spot are in different cities, around the country and my
reading other people might have different readings of the
research literature, but my reading of that review suggests
that onnet, it doesn't look like shot spotter, helps reduce
gun crimes. Um, so many people might have hoped that for
hoped that for shot spotter. When it was deployed, that
doesn't seem to be what we're seeing in the data. When we
look around the country at other cities that are deploying,
it,
um,
With that said that's not as also came up in a previous
session. That's not the only potential benefit that 1 might
want from shot spotter. So I saw this first hand visiting
the sdsc room in District 11 in Garfield Park on the West
Side uh maybe a year ago now when a shot spotter alert went
off in Garfield Park. The officer working the sdsc room
goes to the camera on the Block where the shot spotter
alert went off.
Uh, officers raced to the car guy had been shot sitting in
the driver's seat of his car officers show up. We can see
this on the screen. They administer first aid, they call
for an ambulance. The ambulance comes, they race the sky to
the nearest emergency room and uh, cop working, the camera
turned and said to those of us who the visitors to the sdsc
room, notice what we haven't heard come in over the speaker
system, a 9111 call.
And that got us to wonder how often that happens. And if
that's actually a useful thing in saving lives, in the
city. And so we, we didn't see any data out there on that
question in the existing research literature. And so, we
use data from the violence reduction dashboard that we
built for the city to. It's a public use data set that
includes shot, spotter information, which Community,
violence intervention groups around the city. Encouraged us
to put on there. Um, so we use public data from the
violence, reduction dashboard to see what we could learn
from that. And let me just tell you a little bit about what
we found for that. So we focused on outdoor shootings in
Chicago, which is about 9 and 10 of every shootings in the
city of Chicago.
And essentially what we're going to do is we're going to
look at shooting fatality rates, the likelihood that
someone who is suffers a gunshot wound in Chicago. Winds up
passing away as a result of their injuries. We're going to
look at shooting fatality rates for the areas with shot
Spotter. And the areas that don't have shot spotters. So
shot, spotters about half of all land area covers, half of
all are did Cover half of all land area in Chicago and
about 80 to 85% of all shootings.
The evaluation challenge is that the neighborhoods with shot
spot are quite different on average from the neighborhoods
without shot spotter. So we can't compare shooting fatality
shooting fatality rates in Southside neighborhoods, with
Linkin Park. That's an apples to oranges sort of
comparison.
So what we're going to do instead is basically zoom in on
the boundary areas that connect the non-shooter areas. So,
1 way to think about this is basically looking across the
street from a shot spotter district and an a non-showbiz.
And so, uh, 1 of the things that we did is we looked at
whether there's a difference in in shooting fatality rates
before shot spotter was deployed. So, let me just quickly
talk you through what this graph shows. So the x axis here,
so the axis going left to right is distance from the
border.
Uh, distance from The District border between non-shared and
shot spotter areas on your right. The y axis going up and
down is the shooting fatality rate. So the higher on the y
axis, the higher, the shooting fatality rate, we want that
to be as low as possible. And you can see that as you're
moving within a non-shrink boundary before shot spotter, is
there there's no detectable difference in the shooting
fatality rate, okay before shots, spotter is implemented
That tells you that looking on either side of these
District, boundaries before shot, spotters implemented, 1
side of the street versus the other seems to be a similar
sort of place before shot spotters implemented. Okay? Now
the city rolls out shot spotter.
What happens to the shooting fatality rates in the 2 types
of areas? And what you see in this case is there's
something like a 4 percentage Point lower.
Shooting fatality rate.
In the shot, spotter on the shot spotter, side of the
street compared to the non-showbiz.
um,
I should add that there is an important statistical caveat
to that 4 percentage Point uh reduction uh estimate. So
because we're zooming in and looking at shootings, just
around the district boundaries where using only part of the
shooting data that we have here in the city of Chicago. And
so we wind up having a little bit more noise in the data
than we would ideally like,
so there's about a 1 quarter chance that what we're seeing
in the data is just a statistical fluke. About a 3/4 chance
that there really is a shot spotter impact on shooting
fatality rates. And so, I want to be very clear that the
city and thinking about what to do should be aware of that
uncertainty. Like, there's nothing in life that is certain
in certain, including statistics. Um,
if this impact were real and not an artifact of statistical
noise in the data, what would a 4 percentage Point drop in
the shooting fatality rate mean in the real world?
Well, here's what that would mean. If you go to the shot
spotter areas in 2023, there were 2,124 outdoor shootings.
Pause and think about that number for a second 2,124 outdoor
shootings in about half of the land area of the city of
Chicago, okay?
Multiply that by a 4 percentage Point reduction in the
shooting fatality rate.
That would imply 85 fewer deaths. That's how we come up
with the 85 fewer death numbers that we put in our Chicago
Tribune, uh, opet. Now
1 of the other points that came up in the previous
conversation is, how do we think about the benefit cost
analysis? How do we weigh these different things against 1?
Another um, is it really worth?
10 million dollars a year, call it for shot spotter to save
85 lives. Ultimately, that's a values question for the city
council to make. That's not my job, that's no social
scientist job. What I do want to uh, add to the
conversation, though, is how the federal government would
think about answering that benefit class question, right?
When the federal government is doing safety regulation and
they're weighing a certain number of lives against the
cost.
The way the federal government regulations say you should
do, this is you should act as if each life is worth 13
million dollars. Now, some people might hate that federal
government practice. It's very reasonable. But let's just
talk through the logical implications of the federal rule.
If you were to do the same thing in the city of Chicago.
85 lives times a federal value per Life of 13 million. Gets
you up to 1.1 billion dollars. That is how the federal
government if this is a real impact on safety, that has had
a federal government would think about the benefit cost
calculation. Here, you all can choose to do that the same
way or or differently. Okay? So this is how I read, what we
currently know about the potential costs of shot Spotter
and the potential benefits. I will ignore that there's more
uncertainty here in the data than we would. Ideally like,
right, we could either wait to collect additional data or
we could make decisions. Now, that's ultimately the city's
council's, call. Um, but at least we're starting to get a
clearer sense of what we do know at least at this point
about the benefits and the costs of this uh this
technology. Thank you very much.
Yeah, thank you. Uh, Mr. Ludwick, uh, with your consent? Uh
Uh, can we share this presentation with the members of the
committee who, of course, unfortunately had to leave? So
we'll, we'll send a electronic version. Uh, we'll email
them the rest of the committee members, because I think
it's important that, uh, that they see it Alderman Lopez.
Thank you. Chairman and uh, again good afternoon and thank
you for this. Um and I would also say, let's make sure we
share this with the fifth floor as well.
Um, because I think that as we have a discussion about
data, you've broken it down, very succinctly. And I know
I've referenced this in some of the things that I've
mentioned but I have 2 points that I want to bring up a
raise to you, excuse me. Um, 1 of your earlier slides, when
when you were talking about, uh, benefits and costs, we
said that there were 9% fewer arrests for, uh, the gun
cases for for sorry for non gun. Non gun case. Non gun
cases. Yeah. So,
Without trying to attribute. What period? Was that in,
like, what time frame? Are we talking? Yeah, sorry. So this
is, uh, that 9% figure is not my study that somebody else
has studied. So, this is Michael topper. The guy who was
interviewed by WBEZ, the other day and what he did is he
looked at what happened to arrests in districts over time
as they Implement shot Spotter. And I think his argument in
his study again, this is his study, not my study, but his
argument in his study is that the shot spotter alerts
holding the number of police officers constant, the shot
spotter alerts wind up diverting. Police time to follow a
wake up on those and then they have they respond more
slowly and or have less time to deal with non non-gun
cases. So that's the the argument of this other study. So
was he trying to state that there are are higher non-gun
related arrests in?
I think that would be the logical implication of his uh
holding. I'm not making an assumption. I'm just trying to
figure out. Is that what he was saying or was he just
stating for the, for the shot spotter for the shot spotter
areas. When you implement shot spotter, he's arguing that
that reduces the number of non-gun arrests.
So, I think that I would probably take that with a grain of
salt, because I know we've also seen where some of our
officers are not making arrests simply because we know our
state's attorney is not Prosecuting things, the way that
she should. Um, so that may also play a correlation in
today. Um, but the other thing that I wanted to ask was the
map that you showed of the districts with versus the
districts out without um when you were talking about the
2120 that 1. Yep. So
The information that we're able to infer is that from those
shootings based on these uh statistical information,
provided that 85 lives were saved in this time frame?
Correct your deaths.
if you were to extrapolate that information to a Citywide,
Statistic.
How many lives would have been saved if the entire city had
been covered? Yeah. So uh, the
You know, I'm I'm bad at math even when I have time and so
my math on the Fly is going to be uh, very imperfect but 1
way to think about it, is the shot spotter areas. There
they account for let's call it 8 of every 10 shootings.
Right? And so if the effect was the same everywhere in the
city and you rolled shots spot her out everywhere,
this number would be assuming this is real and not a
statistical artifact in the data. It would be about 1
quarter higher. If my math is right, so 120, so that would
uh, know I think it would be more like a 1055.
Yeah, most of the shootings are concentrated in, uh,
districts that have shot spotter, or, or, or did.
Okay.
Thank you.
Uh, any additional questions?
Alderman, I happen to work.
Thank you chair, thank you for being here. Um, I
Have 3, questions.
Can the University of Chicago truly be considered an
independent research body on this topic?
Um, considering that
mistaken supporting the CPD, including the city's,
violence, reduction dashboard that includes shot, spotter
data, and the SDC rooms that currently rely heavily on this
data. I think it it matters who collects the data and how
we use it. Yeah, I I think I don't, I don't fundamentally
understand. The question in the sense that I'm not clear
that, I see what benefit we get, either from the sdsc rooms
or from the shot spotter data on their violence, reduction
dashboard. But I do understand that this is a hyper
politicized, we're in a hyper politicized country and the
city is we have seen in all of the recent debates locally,
this is a hyper politicized Topic in a hyper politicized
City. So, what we did is we we used public data to do the
analysis and we posted all of our code, uh, for doing the
analysis from download to final numbers and I'd be very
happy to send you the URL after this. If you'd like to redo
the analysis yourself,
Okay, great. Thank you.
and in your op-ed, you
It was mentioned that there was a 1 in 4 chance that you're
findings regarding the reduction.
In the fat fatalities are just noise. And what's the usual
rate of statistical significance? For studies.
That you publish um is 1 and 4 a a normal potential error
rate for your work and is it something that you would feel
comfortable?
Publishing in a scientific data. Yeah, I will, uh, if I can
get your email address from the, from the chairman, I can
send you a paper from, uh, Nobel Laureate, hudo, imbens at
Stanford who wrote an essay that argued that we should be
thinking about statistical uncertainty differently for
scientific hypothesis testing versus public policy
decisions. So his argument is science should be more
conservative than public policy in scientific hypothesis
testing. We usually use a 5% statistical cut off to be very
conservative. Before we overturn our existing,
understanding of the world. We really want to be sure for
Public Policy, using the same sort of 5% rule would
massively privileged the status quo and lock Us in place
and so, quedo in's argument. I'm just telling you. He heo
in's argument that we now find persuasive ourselves but
I'll send you the paper. So you
can decide his argument is that for Public Policy decisions
you should think about the, the odds rather than use uh, 5%
sharp cutoff. And so his way of thinking about this would
be, you have a 30, a 75% chance of saving 85 lives and a 1
and a 1 quarter chance of this, not really having an
impact, and then it's up to the city council and the fifth
floor here in City Hall, to make a decision.
Thank you.
Um, my last question or comment, is that you mentioned that
your findings about the fatality rates are suggested, but
not definitive. And can you just expand on what you meant
by that? Yeah, I think it's I think it's just the
statistical uncertainty point, right? Like, you know, if
you're, if you put me under oath and say am I 100% sure
that there is a life-saving effect of shots butter? I would
say, no, I'm not 100% sure because we did the best that we
could with the data. And there's inevitably some lingering
noise in the data and uh 1 1 in 4 chance that this might be
noise in the data, a 3 and 4 chance that there's really
something going on here. Saving lots of lives.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Alderwoman Lee.
Yeah, I I will share it with you to our committee. Yeah.
Yeah. I'll send it to you and then you can circulate it to
whoever you would like perfect. Okay.
But I agree, um, I I I agree with the, the sentiment that
from a policy perspective, we do. We, we need to give
ourselves a little bit more room for error, um, because
there are so many factors that we don't have data on. Um,
so I appreciate all the work that you did on this. Um, I I
think it's been eye opening for a lot of people and the,
um,
I think there's a a bigger debate about the value of a life
saved that probably needs to happen at the end of the day.
Um, as we saw earlier in, in some of the debate we had
here, um,
You know, any life saved is, is worth something. Uh, the
question for us as a body and as a, as a government is, you
know, where do we invest These funds that we have, um,
where we where we have, uh,
Where we have better evidence at this point, that there's a
75% chance that it is saving a life. Um, so thanks. Thanks
for the work on this. And I look forward to, to reading the
the paper, right?
Thank you.
Thank you for your time and patience. I know it was a long
hearing, uh and we appreciate you, staying with us to the
end.
Uh, our our next and final speaker. Also from the
University of Chicago, a different department. He's from
the sociology Department uh Mr. Robert Vargas, Mr. Vargas,
please join us.
Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for sticking around.
It's the last spring former I don't have slides, by the
way, former Police Superintendent, Eddie Johnson. And I
Went on TV to talk about shot Spotter and we kept debating
about it long. After the segment ended and 1 thing, we
agreed on was that there's no shortage of companies trying
to sell ineffective Technologies to police departments.
And so, the task here is not only to evaluate whether shot
spot or works or not, but to help the city spend taxpayer
dollars wisely.
And according to shot Spotter, and the previous mayor's
office press releases when shots butter was first
introduced, it was touted as a crime reduction technology.
When studies came out indicated, this wasn't true. The
company moved the goalposts claiming it reduced response
times.
And when that too was disproven the company shifted its
argument again saying shots better now saves lives and that
opposing. It means opposing lifesaving, interventions
When you examine this from a taxpayer's perspective which
is different from shot spotter, whose primary goal is
profit maximization. It's clear that this is a test
textbook example of product defense
this tactic which is what Scholars of Science and
Technology have studied in industry is what industries like
tobacco and opioids have used to combat the regulation of
their harmful products.
By continuously changing the narrative to fit their
marketing strategies.
Shots butter is attempting to delay. The inevitable
scrutiny that comes with evidence-based policy-making.
This becomes clearer when shot spotter is compared to
cancer screenings or defibrillators? Which is, which is
what the technology has been compared to. These medical
devices are regulated by the Food and Drug Administration,
which conducts multiple experiments to ensure that such
devices both function as claimed and do not cause harm.
Policing technology. Unfortunately lacks an equivalent
regulatory body.
Which means that our responsibility is to rely on.
The comprehensive evaluation of multiple studies that are
as independent as possible.
so for shot, spotter in Chicago, we have a growing body of
evidence between the oig's report, a National Institute of
Justice funded evaluation by Eric Pisa at Northeastern, uh,
the MacArthur Justice Center report and even work by youth
of color at good kids, Mad City, uh, that points to 1
conclusion, which is that taxpayer dollars, could be
better. Spent on other things than shots.
Thank you. Uh questions. Uh, for Mr Vargas.
Vice mayor brunette. Thank you. Uh, thank you for your
testimony. So, what what's, what's your suggestions on
other things besides shot? Spotters of money being spent on
So what I've seen written are a couple of things, I think
they and they run the full spectrum. I think, if you look
at it from the policing perspective, I've seen better
evidence on things like license plates readers that that
there's I see a stronger body of evidence there that shows
that they help with investigations.
On the health. And I think a more root causes approach to
violence.
Um, I've seen evidence of investments in the creation of
mental health care centers, or Trauma Centers. For example,
there are studies that have come out showing that when
University of Chicago opened its Trauma Center on the south
side that significantly reduced times.
For people to get care. And so another way to think about
how to get uh, care to people in the South and West sides,
but it's to bring the healthcare infrastructure, closer to
them.
um,
Those those are a couple just a couple of quick things off
the top of my head.
So, um,
You don't think that?
shot Spotter and or something compatible to to shot spotter
spotter. Like another, uh, possible vendor would be
complimentary to those other things. You just mentioned, if
you can do them all. I think, I think there are a couple of
things. I would really like to know before, making that
investment. I think that for 1
There's a lot of uncertainty, over the false positives,
like cases where, um, supposed shot is fired. No, no 1's
there. No 1's hurt, nothing, nothing's happening. We
there's so much uncertainty.
About how much how often that actually happens. And that's
a concern for me because the question is from, from, from
my perspective, a couple
What could officers have been spending their time on?
Better to reduce safety.
And if you think about this in the context of emergency
medical responders, I think that's a really big question
too. If you're going to say, if you're going to start
sending off,
Um, EMTs to shelter alerts.
Then you have to deal with the question of
if you divert them away and start sending them to shots
about our alerts. What does that taking their time away
right right now. I think that the the top Le the top
life-threatening situations um that um come from. 9111 are
heart attacks Strokes, respiratory problems. And there I
what I would want to know before making the investment
decision of any technology trying to assist First
Responders is, how much is this? How much do false
positive? Take them away from their jobs that might
actually end up engaging people that they could have been
serving from a 911 call or some other kind of call for
help.
So so can I ask you, do you live in a city? I do what part
of the city in your former Ward, the West Loop, okay. Well,
we highly have any shots going on in the West Loop, right?
Do you have you ever lived on the west side or the South
side? Where there's a lot of where there's a high crime
rate high?
Delta rate high murder rate, a lot of shooting going on. I
have and I've written 2 books on topics pertaining to
communities that live on the South and West sides of
Chicago. So you have lived in those areas. Yes. Where right
now young kids are taking guns and putting an automatic
switch on it to make make it fire several rounds.
Real fast. And it's like, they I don't know if they get it
off the internet or what. And that's like, very prevalent
in some of our communities, that's putting a lot of people
lives in danger.
Yes, I I agree with you on that.
Please.
So, um,
So I hear what you saying and and I agree with part of what
you saying, but I don't think it should be 1 or the other.
I think it need to be all. I think we need everything that
we can get to help. Make sure that people are safe, you
know. Um,
so, several folks have
examples of when people so generally in in in some
neighborhoods
Police don't respond that quick. Yeah, right. And Grant, I
live right across from the West Loop. I live right across
from Ashley.
right, it's it's shots on my side of
You know, of the street and when she when shots happen, you
know, I'm up at night, calling the police, right? Some some
neighborhoods
a whole bunch of shots that happened and
and and other areas like when they shoot and by my house,
nobody in the West Loop know about
and unfortunately, uh, when they shooting by my house,
unfortunately, some people, some other people don't even
bother to call the police, right? Because people tend to,
in some communities mind, their own business.
Right? And if someone was to get hurt and and be down and
and need help and and uh
If a shot spotter how we how people some feel on some, some
people feel on the west side, if the police come there a
100 times and it's a false thing, they happy about it
because they want the police to come a 100 times, right?
Because they want to see police and they neighborhood, you
know. So it it's just it's it's it's challenging because
So us Alderman, I don't know us Alderman on the Western and
south side of Texas. Every night I get a text. Every night,
2, 3 times a night about somebody got shot.
Somebody got killed. That's what we get every night. Those
of us who have those communities where these things go on.
We get Texas at 2, 3:00 in the morning, about somebody who
got shot in somebody who got killed, you know? And, and it
be like in the district and sometimes we 9 times out of
ten. You be like, hoping uh, man, I hope that wasn't my
War, right? But, uh, but but at the same time you hope that
people are still alive, but this stuff goes on every night
every night so I don't know.
We bear that burden.
right, I mean it's not our fault, but we feel it because
we, you know, so
that's why we try to figure out anything, we can to not
only be concerned about
so to be concerned about the person who got shot right
that, hopefully somebody got a got to them in time to get
them, some help so that they could be saved and and not
die. And uh that that happens every night now. Me
personally I Got 5 police districts, right? So I get I'm
either getting 1 from 1 1 1.
18110, and a little bit of 14. So I'm on all those taxes
every night, you know. And, uh, it's, it's it, it's not,
it's, it's challenging for us man. It's just, it's a, it's
a challenging situation. So, it's, it's just hard to
blatantly, just say that. Um,
That.
we need to just do something else instead of that, when
this when when I think to some extent you know folks are
I don't know folk, I mean, to some extent. We need
everything. We need everything. We can get to help people
in the city, stay alive and more.
Not less more. So to to, to 2 points, 1 is I, I think I
with you wholeheartedly but just come at it from a
different direction. So I I remember seeing you speak at a
public hearing at Mary balamoo park because there were a
few. A few years ago I think it was, there was an attempted
kidnapping on that street and I actually appreciated some
words, you said to to, uh, my neighbors because I remember
you. You said something along the lines of like how
You know, and in Wards west of the West Loop shootings are
much, much more common and that the West Loop actually gets
more officers than it actually needs. If you look really
closely at the the number of shootings incidents that are
happening,
And and I appreciated that because I think that's
absolutely true. Um that was not um very pleasing to hear
from some of my West Loop, uh, neighbors who um, you know,
proceeded with conversations about how to like get their
own private police in the West Loop and whatnot. And I I
bring up this point because like I I I agree with you
wholeheartedly but you know we we Face the constraint of
limited resources and so I don't come at this to mean any
disrespect to anyone or to like devalue life but if, if
we're trying to make more informed decisions, better
decisions on what technologies to invest in,
Um, these kinds of hard conversations are exactly what
what's needed. And I think that while it has been very
politicized, uh, hyper politicized, in some ways, I
actually think it's been good for the city because I think
for anyone that's going to try to develop a technology to
assist First Responders in the future.
The question of knowing how to quantify and measure false
positives to ensure that time is not being wasted to ensure
that, you know, the police who are arriving to the scene
are em, EMS that are arising arriving aren't actually
causing harm unintentionally by leaving other potentially,
more important calls. I think to me, those, those get us
closer to developing better and better Technologies. I feel
like we all have our hands tied because there's no
equivalent of an FDA to say. Okay, you have to go through
all these things. Okay, we know this is effective. We know
it doesn't have these arms. Yeah. So so I don't know if uh,
You know, if if spot shoter is the best technology out
here, right? Is this spot? Did I say it right? Yeah, shot
spotter. Okay, we know what you meant. Okay, I don't know
if uh uh, shot spotter is the best technology.
I think we need to look at everything, you know, I mean,
and we need to get the best for the city, you know. Because
we have
I mean his life or death in this city um and
Like I said, we live with this stuff, not only do, we get
the Texas on the back end. We get the families calling us.
Yeah, right, I mean, we live with this stuff every day.
you know, um, so it's it's it's different for us, it's
different
You know, some people live in a bubble, you know, you know,
some of us experience the bubble and experience out of the
bubble too, right? We experience it all and I'm going to
tell you it's a, it's a whole totally different situation,
uh, and and, and
You know, they shoot right by right behind my house.
all the time, I hate to say that you know but uh it happens
and and uh so anyway
All right. Thank you. Uh, Bernett Alderman. Lee
Thank you chair, Mr. Vargas. Um, just want to pick up a
little bit of the conversation. Um, I, you know, I
You gave a really brief statement was pretty struck by it.
Um,
I, I wonder how you feel about the
If we had technology like having had shot spotter when we
did, if we also had more, let's say, pod cameras in the
same areas.
Could we not have made better decisions more? Well,
informed ones, because a ping, uh, sets off on shot
Spotter. And then, uh, the, the Pod camera, um, nearby is
automatically, um, queued up and then all of a sudden, an
sdsc room. Can rewind the tape to see what happened there,
um, or to see if there's actually a body there. So is there
an argument to be made then, um, that more technology? And
I think we do have to lean on more technology because we
have far fewer police officers and human resources than
we've ever had.
Had in the past. Um, and to be honest with you, you know, I
don't, I don't know that. Um,
it it we don't have a crystal ball. Um, we can't predict
the future. We can't look back and say, what if? And like,
where could they have gone? Yeah. Um, I I think certainly
there. It's a valid enough argument or a question to pose
say would would the time spent going to uh the scene of a
shot spotter ping, be more uh valuably spent um going to
another place. And I think that's something that, you know,
Oemc and the call takers and everybody else has to work out
in terms of how do we prioritize these things? I had 1
instance, in my own award was not shot spotter but it was
2, neighbors 1. 1 neighbor. Had someone knocking on their
door. Someone who I think was having like, a mental crisis
or some didn't know where she was. Um, but the people on
the inside thought she was trying to break into her house.
She said let me into my house.
The neighbor also heard the same thing, and then they both
called the police and they canceled each other out in the
system because it got categorized as domestic dispute
between 2 2 neighbors. So, police car was never actually
dispatched.
So, you know, there's all kinds of ways things can go
sideways. Um, you know, my I guess the point of my my
comment question to you is really, you know, how do we
How do we Leverage? Is there a way that you see? Um, that
technology can be leveraged to provide, um, more evidence
if you will, or more data to ensure that we're, this is the
highest best use of whatever resource that we have because
I think that's a lot of what you're, you know, your
argument is about, yeah. So a couple, a couple of thoughts,
um,
I think that.
You you phrase it, as whether shot spotter was accompanied
with cameras, could have, could there have been more
effective decisions made? I think, maybe, but ultimately,
the question is,
What do, what does the city council? What do communities
want their Technologies to do?
And so the answer to that question is going to depend on
what what exactly that objective is. And so if you were to
ask me whether, you know, the use of shots better and
cameras.
Might help, uh, with criminal investigations. I don't know
the cameras might, but to my knowledge and I wish, uh, the
Inspector General was here, uh, shots about our evidence is
not allowed as evidence in court rooms.
And so it's it's uncertain, whether it would help with
that.
Um, and
and I think that, um,
uh, to, to the point about
You made about the, the challenges, you all face the city
council members uh, with uh, serving constituencies with
these issues. I generally think that the more transparency
you can get from technology providers, the better, uh,
because to go back to the example, I gave with the alderman
Bernett in the West Loop that like, I think that part of
what ties the hands of City Council Members, when they get
questions from residents, wanting more police wanting
having misperceptions that police over here, over there is
transparent open data on where everything is so that they
know that you're not favoring 1 group or another which is
often where people's minds immediately go to write.
and the challenge with trying to,
Make technology firms more.
transparent is that they're incentivized to not give you
the data that will allow you to make a fair decision
because they don't want. They don't want to be fairly
evaluated and that's understandable from a private firm
like every every Private Business doesn't want to have
their stuff out there and evaluated, because, you know,
there's competitors who might mess with it and such. And
so, you know, this is a, this is a this is where I think
that potentially learning from other cities could be
helpful to learn how, what kinds of good relationships do
they have with technology firms? Uh, I know that some
In some instances, cities, can require any technologies that
want to do business with the city to have open and
transparent data, that can then be evaluated by multiple
sources.
and I feel like the more that the, the city uh can
Have more Folks at the table looking at at these data
they're all going to say different things by the way. So so
so it's not going to provide you a definitive answer of
what this is. But at the very least I think it will give
you all more information than what you currently have to
make better decisions because at the end of the day, I
don't think that this is a task of science or data telling
you what to do next. It's more of giving you as much
information possible to take a risk
A risk at trying to to enhance safety to make the city
better knowing that it might fail.
Point of information.
Our other woman lie where you done with your questions? No,
not quite, but go to go to your. Yeah, I hope that, I hope
that answers not a question, that's a point of information.
Okay, go ahead Alderman, more on your point, and then we'll
return all of them. You said you stated that shh spotter,
uh, evidence cannot be used in court. That's what you just
said. So, you're saying a shell casing is found after shot.
spotter alert cannot be using court, so I'm going to defer
to another expert on this. But I know that, I know that in
some, in some cases, judges have dismissed shots, but are
evidence. I don't know if it's specifically its related.
Related to Shell cases. So your statement was shot. Spotters
cannot be used in court and so you said that on record. So
my, my question back to you is a point of information and
information and Clarity. Are you telling me that shell
casings found through a shot. Spot alert, cannot be used in
court so that I don't know.
Alderwoman Lee used to have the floor. Um, I think that,
you know, the, the reason for our decisions or, you know,
the, the sort of what's motivating, whatever decision
making on that we're we're doing or uh,
Executing on, um, Public Safety is the top of everybody's
list, right? So we want, we want, not only people to feel
safe, but actually be safe and we know that those are 2
totally different things. Yeah, right. So, um, I get that,
um, I think that we, uh, at the end of the day need to, as
a, as a governing body and I'm I'm with you on the
transparency. I think that the transparency is important. I
I haven't read the RFI and or whatever's going to go into
this RFP. Um, but hopefully people are listening and making
that part of the requirement. I don't think that's too much
to ask at the end of the day, because then we don't end up
sitting in a room like this. Arguing about what data is
available and what's not? Uh, I I think truly, we're, we're
constantly trying to find ways to keep people safe to and
and given the circumstances that we're in too, where we've
created a situation. Now, that we've, we had the technology
for a number of years now, you know, we're a couple days
out from not having it. Um, and there are a lot of people
in
The city who won't call the police. I tell you my own
Community, you know. Um, having people engage with the
police at all is very difficult thing to do. Even if you're
the victim of a crime, you might not report the crime. Um,
so you know, when
having cameras and technology in my community with a, like
a private Network that that through the community um, has
been put together, has been
Really invaluable in helping the police to um catch and
capture people, commit a crime in our community.
So I I'm all for technology, I don't necessarily know. Um
we haven't run the data necessarily to see shot spot or
alerts compared to you know um when that signal to somebody
somebody a volunteer, by the way, 100% volunteer, run to go
check all of the cameras in that particular area. But you
know, I am interested in the this whole like complimenting
Technologies piece of it. Um, because I do think that
there's likely some, some value to that, um,
But I think we, we have to stop thinking about where, how
do we take money to rob Peter to pay Paul and think about
how we, how we get, what we need to get with the resources
that we have. Um, so that we we don't have to pick and
choose that way but you know, that that's what we're
sitting in the seats for thanks.
Yeah, thank you Alderman lie. Uh, we are approaching the
fourth hour of this hearing, uh, so if there's no further
Alderman Moore,
We have several people to come up here today. What data
were you using to make um uh to qualify your statements
that you've made?
so there's been many journalism, deep investigations,
filing, Freedom of Information Act requests on shot spot as
relationships with academics with, um,
With, uh, lobbying forums, and just simply looking at like,
the press releases of what shot spotters. So you didn't get
your own analysis on any data. I'm sorry you didn't do your
own analysis on any data. I've I've done some of it too.
Yes. Using what data from where from oemc where do you get
the data from from? So I didn't evaluate shot spotter. My
colleagues who testified have what I'm what I spoke about
was
Focusing on what shot spotter. Has claimed the technology
does and when you look at,
Press releases and uh both from the pre past mayoral
administrations and shot spotter. They have, in fact said
that this technology has these benefits and Studies have
since come out, refuting them. That's That's the basis of
my argument.
okay, and so that's information, so
you were here when I gave a lived experience when
some, um, guys came around shooting in the community and
they were going to double back, but they didn't double back
because the police was on a scene so quick because of shot
spotter.
And the guys didn't get a chance to retaliate because they
knew who they was in in gang war with and they put police
their due to shot spotter.
Are you capturing or anybody know about those real life
experiences in that data?
I think that the
Previous colleagues who testified would would be the better
ants. Okay. And so that's all I'm saying, you know, I I get
a opinions, I get, you know, everybody got a, you know,
opinions, you know, it's just it's like the bottom of my
rear ends, everybody got 1 but at the end of the day, these
these leave these leave experiences. Yeah, that we know and
think that's what Alderman Bernett was getting that. Yeah,
because when you live that thing, you know, that thing,
thing, he's not just getting to the point where you were
saying, hey, did you really live in the west side? Yeah.
You live there. But are you really when you given an
opinion and not using real data? Yeah. And especially data
that you collected because I always of the belief. Trust me
even verify if even if I'm using somebody else's
information. And so and so I I I think we got to be
careful.
Here. Um, when we saying that, it's not because the the
reports I'm getting is that um um shootings are down um and
and and certain areas. I was just at my area 1 meeting the
other day and they were, you know, saying how were you at
that meeting? Yeah.
Then they say that. Yeah. And so and so how much unless we
could say how much that is attributed to
A certain thing. Um, whether it's shot spot or anything
else, it's I think it's attributed to many tools and you
don't want to take that tool out while we're trending in
the right direction, without having something to replace
with it because nobody is saying this is the 1 thing nobody
can answer here. When I asked, tell me that 1 thing that's
bringing um um uh violence down or bringing shootings down
tell me that 1 thing because I put the money towards that
and nobody is willing to go. You're on record and say that
So so 1 thing I'll say is I absolutely don't deny and don't
ever intend to deny, the real experiences that people
living with the realities of gun violence, have on the
South and West sides. I do think that that that's 1 thing
that is um, a troubling reality is that, you know, there
are some who will try to exploit those experiences for
their own game.
And I think that in some instances you know we can think of
of many like problematic predatory business behaviors in
southern Westside communities that do do more harm to
communities than than benefits.
And, and I think that, um,
So, you saying the businesses would exploit that for their
own game? I think that that, um,
I'll give, I'll give the counter example. Okay? So like
I'll give an example like
few years ago, when Governor Bruce Browner was in office,
the state budget was frozen for a year year and a half,
something like that. And there was tremendous outcry from
communities as, as this, it affected, not only the
provision of violence, prevention, uh, resources but also
Mental Health.
and so,
It's to me. It's it's interesting that like entities like
shots butter will tout like the uh awful experiences that
people in South and West Side communities. Have when their
bottom line is being impacted, but when other larger bigger
changes are happening in the city of Chicago, that are due
to forces Beyond just the city.
Where where's the, where's the support of the community's
experience there? Like where were these private Tech firms?
When the entire State's budget was was frozen for a year
and a half and people couldn't get their mental health.
People couldn't get their violence prevention. That's where
I that that's the point that I was making about taking
advantage of is that, like, it's like, when when arguments
like this being made by private companies are made, you
always have to take it with a grain of salt because yeah,
I'm sure that you know, people that work for shot spotter,
do care from the community but they also are beholden to
their shareholders to make sure that the companies in
sharing a product and we shouldn't conflate those 2 things.
The problem is, is like when you're trying to evaluate
something like this, they're always conflated. And that,
that's what makes it structurally hard for anyone to be
able to figure out what, what is really going on here. Now,
I agree with you and say, I'm always concerned of where I
went Corporate America is that period when things are going
on, but let me for a factual. Tell you that what I just in
the real life experience, I gave you
Shots, butter did not.
Use that I use that. They didn't know what they didn't
think about it, and they said David, we didn't even think
about that.
So they have, you'll find nothing in the article where shot
spotter or anywhere. Where shot spotter the people there.
Stated what I just stated to you, because they didn't have
that real life experience and they didn't even know that
type of thing was benefiting them so they couldn't even
Market it.
So this is what I'm saying, be careful with opinion.
Because they didn't even know that.
Bless you, man. Thank you.
Alderman Lopez.
Thank you, chairman. I'm just going to be brief. Um,
I don't agree with 90% of what you said, I don't.
Um,
I actually believe and agree in something that you didn't
talk about which is that if you're going to talk about
where institutional crime from comes from, in the city of
Chicago, from our political structures, most of it comes
from gerrymandering which is when 1 of your books is about,
if I'm not mistaken.
That I think has more relevance and and more factual basis
than what I've heard today. Because I think that, if you
are sitting here talking about,
A technology provider a vendor is being agreed to
Corporation. Then by your own definition, Ford is a greedy
Corporate provider because they sell us the cars at our
police officers Drive.
I I never made an argument against and I would also just
challenge that you are, if I'm not mistaken is are you
still associated with the, uh,
With the violence law and politics lab, it is now the US
Chicago Justice project. So is that the evolution it is of
the and how is that funded still with both public and
private dollars? It is. So I think that that's as we're
casting dispersions on our Partnerships and funding that.
That's something that we have to always be mindful of is
ourselves as well as my colleagues Point earlier. Um, but I
think that
when you are trying to have a discussion about
not the
we we are we are we are manipulating conversations.
From targeting a vendor.
Versus targeting the technology, the vendor provides. And
the question is are we wanting I don't care if it shot
spotter or some other company? I really don't care, but I
think that it's easy to make these the populist argument
that it's a greedy Corporation.
When our our entire 16 billion bureaucracy is operates under
corporations. Our emails come from Microsoft. Should we
stop? Sending emails? I didn't make all our providers come
from that. So, I think that that's just something that in
the context of things chairman, we just have to be mindful
of that. Thank you. Okay. Can I, can I just say, 1 1,
Point, briefly? I, I, I never made the argument that we
should somehow abandon
Partnerships with private entities. I think that there's
there's a history of bad deals that the city has entered
into with private entities like the parking meter Etc that
like it would benefit folks that know more and to
scrutinize more.
The private firms that the city partners with. I think
that's the argument that I'm making.
all right, uh, 1 final Point, uh, for the record, we do
have a representative of shot spotter here. Who can address
specifically the question of admissibility, uh, in a court
of law could you. Uh, please step forward, grab the nearest
microphone, and
Actually, since you're on that side of the gallery, can we
reactivate the public testimony microphone? Uh, and then
just Gary, just state your name for the record and address
the, uh, question of. Can this be admitted in court?
Thank you walderman. I'm Gary Bernard vice president,
corporate development for sound thinking.
Uh, I appreciate the opportunity to set the record straight
on that important point.
I think the statement was made that shot spotter is not
allowed as evidence in court.
We produce at customer request documents that we call
detailed forensic reports
This is a detailed analysis of The Gunshot incident that we
detect.
Uh, hundreds of dfrs have been used as Court admissible,
evidence around the country.
Thank you, Gary, uh, alderwoman, may, I help and work that
you have a, a question. I know you have a motion to
adjourn, uh, but did you have a question first?
I I do have a question actually. Um, thank you. Mr. Vargas
for being here. I um,
I I want to say that um, Edgewater is the 20th district
police district 1 of, um, the least, um, number of 911
service calls in Chicago, but we're not immune to gun
violence and our, our 2, highest profile. Um, murders in
the war, it happened in the middle of the day, um, 13 and
16 year olds, you know, we, um, we feel that.
Every day after after those murders.
Um,
The families, who, who want to stay in the ward and also
the siblings and the, the students who, who feel the loss
of of their friends.
so,
We want to be safe, too.
and, and we've been seeing a, uh, a high number of
Of crime in the war and um, not violent as much as in other
words.
And I believe that.
Feeling safe also.
Helps increase safety too.
but we've been talking a lot about the, the cost benefits
of this technology and I appreciated the, the conversation,
And calling on data who collects it, how we use it. And um,
I know we we asked for studies through the chair. So
um, in addition to that, I would I would like to
Because you mentioned it. Um you talked about license plate
readers which I'm excited for because we really need those.
Um we have uh are on the lakefront so just saw the
Lakeshore Drive is a thoroughfare for people to exit after
they.
They do crime in the ward. Um, I believe that will help a
lot um and we need also mental health centers in the ward.
We we have a diversity of our population and um Uptown as
well. Um, and we need it. Um, but you also mentioned root
causes so can you just explain a little bit about what you
mean by that? Because
We would like to say yes root causes. If we just address
root causes, we could solve everything, people don't
understand, maybe what that means. And it's, it's really
difficult to just say root causes that will. Um, if you
just address and put all of your investments in there, we
will be safer as a city. Oh I'll try briefly. Um, I've
thought about root causes a lot. I have a whole research
agenda on that with respect to Chicago and homicide, I
think the best way to describe it is, um, you know, we've
been Gathering and digitizing homicide data in Chicago,
from 1870, to 2020, so far more data work than you would
ever want to imagine.
and um,
1 thing that has come up is that when you look at I was
really interested in knowing which areas of the city have
had near zero homicide rates since Inception.
Which ones are the areas where it's actually been most
peaceful. And the 1 thing that they have in common is I'll
say this is a correlation and not a cause but it gets sort
of at the Spirit of root causes is that these were all
um neighborhoods that were previously settlements or
townships. So, like Hyde Park Lake View, Rogers Park
actually. Um, these uh, were were back when before the city
of Chicago, even existed be a reformed as townships like
their own cities, Chicago, grew for reasons that I won't
get into and annexed these townships to become
neighborhoods. And there was a large negotiation between
the representatives of these townships, the State,
Illinois, government, and the city government on. What
terms, those communities are going to enter in and 1 of the
guarantees that they had was political representation in
the city, council. To ensure that up Lopez left to ensure
that these communities never get gerrymandered that they
would get representation.
And when you look at the, the trajectory of economic
development, in these former settlements,
And it it tells the story of like in terms of root causes
communities that have had sustained.
Uh, political representation that are not cut across 6 or 7
different wards.
Um, communities that have been recipients of economic
investment, uh, communities that are very well, integrated
into the transportation infrastructure of the city. So that
folks commuting from them can go to their jobs and downtown
Etc. Like all of that is a is a Vestige of that history and
that 1 way. I 1 way that I think about root causes then is
to think about it. I think, in terms of long term changes,
but investments in infrastructure and this is where it's
more than just a public safety issue. It's it's a
transportation 1, it's an M Economic Development 1. And so,
you know, if there's any lesson I can say to move forward
is, is you have to think about it, not just as Public
Safety. But as intersectional across all these agencies and
I keep going on and on and on but that's the best answer. I
could give to that really hard question.
Thank you. And and I think about my neighborhood that I
represent, which is, um, very transit public transit Rich.
Yeah. And, uh, it has fantastic schools by the lakefront. A
lot of amenities that, um, we love about the city of
Chicago and I believe that every single neighborhood should
also feel safe in their own neighborhoods that, um, thank
you for your work. Um, there's a lot for us to do but I
appreciate you being here.
Thank you.
And your motion.
Yeah, yeah. All right.
And since we are ending in a moment of Unity, thank you
very much. Worth moves, a German hearing no objection, so
ordered. Thank you everyone. Thanks for your patience.
Thank