Regarding the editorial (May 24): For 2 1/2 years, Chicago’s law-and-order City Council members didn’t care about canceling the ShotSpotter contract. Then on Feb. 13, he was fulfilling his campaign promise to cancel the ShotSpotter contract.
Only then did law-and-order aldermen begin to feign outrage at his decision. They did not care when community members in Little Village demanding justice for the police killing of Adam Toledo. They didn’t care when Johnson, as a mayoral candidate, and others to cancel the ShotSpotter contract at the People’s Unity Platform Mayoral Forum.
Did they attend on the Chicago Police Department’s use of the technology? Johnson ran his campaign on reimagining how we think about public safety. Canceling the ShotSpotter contract was one step in manifesting that vision. He went on to defeat law-and-order mayoral candidate Paul Vallas with that message.
The people of Chicago voted for him knowing he would cancel the contract. Now, law-and-order aldermen clutch their pearls. Ald.
David Moore Jr., 17th, that would, well, it’s unclear exactly what the ordinance would do or how it would do it. It turns out that lobbyists for SoundThinking, the company behind ShotSpotter, to Moore and other aldermen, who then continued this country’s great tradition of accepting policies drafted by corporations.
Make no mistake. What happened at the City Council on May 22 was pure political theater. The City Council, a legislative body, the mayor does.
So what.