CHICAGO — Ald. Raymond Lopez on Monday filed paperwork calling for a special session of the City Council in hopes of overruling Mayor Brandon Johnson’s decision to cancel the city’s contract with SoundThinking, the company behind the ShotSpotter gunshot-detection technology.
Johnson last February extended use of the gunfire detection software through last month’s Democratic National Convention, setting a Sept. 22 expiration date. But a group of alders want the tech to remain in place.
“The City Council has already given him an order to continue this technology in the wards that want it,” said Lopez, who represents the 15th Ward. “Like every other order that this body gives him, he has to follow it and he’s willfully choosing to disregard the will of the body. … He is the chief executive. He has to execute the will of the City Council and we’re at a point now when we’re going to see which one of us is correct.”
Johnson insists he won’t reverse course, slamming the tech as a “walkie talkie on a pole.”