Taking away police tools

You'll never guess why. Actually, you will.

As Chicago politicians still act confused about the city’s sky-high violence, they’re now taking another step backwards. Shortly after DNC delegates leave the city in August, ShotSpotter will be leaving as well.

ShotSpotter is law enforcement technology that immediately alerts police to the area where a gun has been fired. Proponents say it’s faster and more accurate than 911 calls … and it works when no one calls 911 in the first place. In fact, 80% of gunfire incidents are never reported to police.

In Chicago, the tech helped get 3,000 illegal guns off the streets. And not only is it a law enforcement tool, helping police catch shooters, it’s also life-saving. In Oakland alone, ShotSpotter alerts have allowed police to locate over 100 gunshot victims and provide life-saving medical aid.

Now, Chicago and a few progressive cities are ditching ShotSpotter, because activists call the technology - you know the drill - "racist."

ShotSpotter has a 97% accuracy rate, confirmed by multiple studies, but it’s a tool that sends police into action, and that’s enough.

Critics complain that ShotSpotters is installed primarily in minority neighborhoods. The obvious rebuttal is “that’s where the guns are being fired.” Sensor placement, in fact, is based solely on historical gunfire data, not racial demographics.

No, it’s not racist to put crime-prevention technology in areas where that crime most often occurs. In fact, many people living in those neighborhoods are begging for that kind of help. Darryl Smith, an anti-violence activist, says those protesting ShotSpotter:

“definitely [weren’t] from our community. They were, like, from the north side of town, and not to split it as in segregation or nothing, but most of them were white people who don’t live here, that don’t go through the things we go through here, that don’t understand our dynamics of how we’ve got to live every day, hearing gunshots, especially, like me, seeing young men with their brains blew out on the street.”

Of course, ShotSpotter isn’t the only law enforcement equipment that’s been accused of being racist. Facial recognition systems are said to discriminate. So are red light cameras. Even the existence of police at all has been called a racist policy.

Commentator Heather Mac Donald makes this point routinely: “A solid body of evidence finds no structural bias in the criminal-justice system with regard to arrests, prosecution or sentencing. Crime and suspect behavior, not race, determine most police actions.”

It’s another instance of activists waving the "racism" flag against anything-police related, ultimately hurting the very people they claim to help.

– Ken