Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson announces the city is terminating its contract with ShotSpotter, the controversial gunshot detection technology company, bringing to an end one of the largest and longest-running deployments of acoustic surveillance in American policing. The contract will expire on …
The reliability and accuracy of ShotSpotter’s gunshot detection technology face a major crisis in August 2021 as the Chicago Office of Inspector General releases a damning report on the system’s effectiveness, while the Michael Williams case exposes evidence that ShotSpotter analysts …
On December 4, 1969, at 4:45 a.m., fourteen Chicago police officers raided the apartment of Fred Hampton, 21-year-old chairman of the Illinois Black Panther Party. Police fired between 82 and 99 shots into the apartment; the Panthers fired at most one. Hampton was shot twice in the head at …
On Memorial Day, May 30, 1937, Chicago police open fire on peaceful union demonstrators outside Republic Steel Corporation’s South Chicago plant, killing ten people and wounding more than ninety in what becomes known as the Memorial Day Massacre. The police use tear gas, firearms, and clubs …
On July 27, 1919, the drowning of Black teenager Eugene Williams - who drifted into a white beach area on Lake Michigan and was stoned by white beachgoers - triggered eight days of racial violence in Chicago that killed 38 people (23 Black, 15 white), injured 537, and left over 1,000 Black families …
A peaceful labor rally at Haymarket Square in Chicago advocating for the eight-hour workday descends into violence when an unknown person throws a dynamite bomb at police officers attempting to disperse the gathering. The blast and ensuing retaliatory police gunfire kill seven police officers and at …