A former murder suspect is suing the city of Chicago, accusing its police department of jailing him for a year based on evidence it knew was unreliable.
Gunshot detection sensors were used to charge Michael Williams with murder and jail him pending trial in the 2020 death of his neighbor Safarian Herring.
But prosecutors dropped the case for lack of evidence and now Mr. Williams is suing the city for damages.
The lawsuit argues that officers “put blind faith in ShotSpotter evidence they knew or should have known was unreliable,” according to The Associated Press.
Mr. Williams seeks damages from the city for mental anguish, legal bills, and the loss of income. Mr. Williams also suffers from a tremor in his hand developed during his time behind bars.
“I don’t think I will ever be free of the thought of what they have done and the impact that has on me now, like the shaking with my hand,” he said.
ShotSpotter takes audio from scattered acoustic sensors before feeding it through a gunshot detection algorithm. Police are then given the location of the audio.
Mr. Williams had picked up Herring during a night of unrest in the city. The key evidence used to charge him was “a clip of noiseless security video showing a car driving through an intersection, and a loud bang picked up by [ShotSpotter],” according to the Associated Press.
Chicago police are accused of zeroing in on Mr. Williams based only on the technology without having any other real evidence against him.
The lawsuit claims that police “never established a motive for Mr. Williams to have shot Herring, never found witnesses to the shooting, and never recovered a weapon or physical evidence tying Mr. Williams to the killing.”
The suit seeks class-action status for any and all residents stopped due to ShotSpotter alerts, as well as a court order banning the technology in Chicago.
In 2021, the Chicago Office of Inspector General released a report that argued ShotSpotter was ineffective, finding that “between Jan. 1, 2020, and May 31, 2021, more than 50,000 ShotSpotter alerts were confirmed as probable gunshots, but that actual evidence of a gun-related crime was found in about 4,500 instances, or only about 9%,” according to The Associated Press.
ShotSpotter, which is not named as a defendant in the lawsuit, defended its technology in a statement to The Washington Times.
“The ShotSpotter system is highly accurate, with a 97% aggregate accuracy rate for real-time detections across all customers that has been independently verified by Edgeworth Analytics. ShotSpotter evidence and ShotSpotter expert witness testimony have been successfully admitted in 200 court cases in 20 states and ShotSpotter evidence has survived scrutiny in dozens of Frye and Daubert challenges, and counting. ShotSpotter’s coverage areas are determined by police using objective historical data on shootings and homicides to identify areas most impacted by gun violence to provide residents who live in communities experiencing persistent gunfire a rapid police response.”
The American Civil Liberties Union also weighed in last year, telling the AP that “ShotSpotter’s methodology is used to provide evidence against defendants in criminal cases, but isn’t transparent and hasn’t been peer-reviewed or otherwise independently evaluated.”
The story has been updated to include a response from ShotSpotter.
• Brad Matthews can be reached at bmatthews@washingtontimes.com.
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