ShotSpotter CEO Ralph Clark stands for a portrait at one of the company's facilities in Newark, Calif., on Tuesday, Aug, 10, 2021. (AP Photo/Josh Edelson, File)

EDITOR’S NOTE (5/7): This article has been updated with comments from a SoundThinking representative and a disclaimer at the bottom. The headline and lede have also been modified to more fairly and accurately reflect Ralph Clark’s comments.

In an interview published Monday, SoundThinking CEO Ralph Clark compared Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson’s pledge to divest from the company’s product ShotSpotter to President Barack Obama’s pledge to close the Guantánamo Bay detention camp, saying both are misunderstood.

While speaking with POLITICO’s Shia Kapos last week in an effort to defend ShotSpotter from defunding in Chicago, Clark said he spoke with Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson about his campaign promise to end the city’s contract with SoundThinking. He then compared the situation to when President Barack Obama pledged to close the Cuban military prison during the 2008 campaign but ultimately did not.

“We’ve had some conversations. I understand the honor of that [campaign promise],” Clark told Kapos. “And I’m reminded of Barack Obama [who] campaigned on closing Guantanamo Bay when he was a candidate. Then he became president, and he probably had his first briefing, security briefing, and thought, ‘OK, I might be looking at this thing a little bit differently than when I made this campaign promise. I had a certain facts and a certain set of facts and assumptions I had campaigned for. It certainly sounded good. But now I’m elected my higher duty is not to a campaign promise, but to my sworn obligation to serve and protect.’”

The Guantánamo Bay detention camp, opened in January 2002 by President George W. Bush during the War on Terror, is highly controversial due to its policy of keeping up to 780 terrorism suspects in indefinite detention without trial, sometimes for decades. Human rights organizations like Amnesty International, the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights Watch have detailed allegations of torture, systemic abuse and judicial proceedings in violation of both the U.S. Constitution and international law. Now holding 30 detainees and operating an executive order by President Donald Trump to stay open indefinitely, President Joe Biden has pledged to close the camp, with little progress.

ShotSpotter has drawn progressive ire from across the U.S. for being extremely costly for cities despite being fairly ineffective in stopping crime or leading to arrests. In Chicago alone, a review by the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office published in February by the Chicago Sun-Times found that ShotSpotter data led to arrests only 1% of the time. An August 2021 report by the city’s Inspector General’s Office (OIG) found that only 9% of ShotSpotter alerts have led to evidence of a gun crime.

However, a recent study funded by the U.S. Department of Justice found that ShotSpotter alerts made police response times up to two minutes faster than a gunshot detection alert combined with a 911 call. And the tool has wide backing from alderpeople of the south and west sides, where crime is more prevalent.

A SoundThinking representative disputed the accuracy of both the Cook County review and the OIG’s report, saying they have “serious misleading interpretations” and are being “misrepresented,” respectively. The representative also cited the Chicago Police Department’s praise of the tool, as then-Superintendent David Brown credited ShotSpotter in 2022 for helping to save 125 lives and recover 2,985 firearms and 24,421 pieces of evidence in the span of five years.

“ShotSpotter’s main value is in the lives it saves,” the representative stated. “Over 80% of gunfire goes unreported to 911 and law enforcement must have a tool to close that gap and respond immediately to any instance of outdoor gunshots in case there is a corresponding victim. ShotSpotter has led police to hundreds of gunshot-wound victims with no corresponding 911 call, so we must not ignore the importance of this technology’s ability to bring care to victims who may otherwise not receive the aid they need, resulting in hundreds of lives saved.”

The progressive Johnson had decommissioned ShotSpotter in February after the city spent $49 million since 2018 on the technology, but he temporarily extended the contract by nine months with an $8.6 million contract extension to phase it out after the Democratic National Convention in August.

But Clark told Kapos that ShotSpotter is a piece of a larger puzzle in solving gun violence, it creates crime reports when 911 calls aren’t made and that it’s the fault of district attorneys for the technology not producing a high number of arrests. 

“ShotSpotter isn’t responsible for prosecuting cases. District attorneys are,” Clark said. “Our single line of focus is really helping cops save lives. That’s what it’s about. There are so many other factors that go into prosecutions and crime reduction. It’s a very complicated and messy thing that involves a lot of different pieces, and it’s hard to isolate any one thing. If we were going to be singularly responsible for increasing prosecution rates, and also reducing violent crime … we would be charging a lot more than $70,000 per square mile per year.” 

The Chicago City Council will likely vote on May 22 on weakening Johnson’s repeal. 

Disclaimer: Brandon Johnson previously hosted a weekend program, “Sunday Mornings with Brandon Johnson,” on WCPT 820AM prior to his mayoral campaign and election. Heartland Signal has not worked with Brandon Johnson since the announcement of my mayoral campaign.