CHICAGO (CN) — The U.S. Justice Department and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives announced the launch of a new gun crime-focused law enforcement office on Wednesday, which officials called a "crime gun intelligence center."
The DOJ classifies the center as a centralized hub for law enforcement that focuses on investigation and preventing gun violence in the city.
"They use cutting-edge technologies, including ATF’s National Integrated Ballistic Information Network and eTrace systems, to rapidly develop and pursue investigative leads in order to drive case clearance rates up — which in turn can help drive violent crime rates down," the DOJ said in press materials.
"To continue our historic progress against violent crime, we need to bring more crime gun intelligence to more law enforcement agencies, in more jurisdictions, more quickly than ever before," Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said in a prepared statement regarding the center.
At a press conference on Wednesday, Monaco also said the center was part of the DOJ's broader effort at reducing the rise in violent crime that she said has been happening since the beginning of the pandemic.
According to FBI data, violent crime nationally is down from 2020. Between then and 2022, crime decreased by 4.7%, and it decreased a further 6% between the fourth quarter of 2022 and the fourth quarter of 2023. Violent crime numbers in Chicago, since 2020 are harder to pin down. They vary depending on the source, and by what is considered as violent crime. Data from the University of Chicago Crime Lab claims violent crime in the city increased by over 17% between 2020 and 2023, though homicides and non-fatal shootings decreased by 20% and 29% respectively.
The Chicago Police Department's own numbers on violent crime, as detailed in its annual reports from 2020 to 2022, are inconsistent from year to year. The 2022 and 2020 reports state the number of violent crime incidents in both years were roughly equivalent, but per the 2021 report's numbers on 2020 totals, 2022 saw over 1,700 more violent crimes.
Monaco and ATF Director Steven Dettelbach, along with the ATF's chief Chicago special agent Christopher Amon, Chicago Police Superintendent Larry Snelling, acting Federal District Attorney Morris Pasqual and Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul all came out in support of the new center on Wednesday, which they said will be a collaboration of 13 local, state and federal law enforcement agencies.
Dettelbach claimed the center would use state of the art intelligence to analyze evidence from gun crimes, with the aim of protecting people from violent crime and reducing the number of illegal weapons in the city.
"Our strategy to succeed in that mission is really twofold." Dettelbach said. "First, to use the data to identify the shooters — the trigger pullers — and get them off our streets. And second, to use that same data to stop the people who are illegally providing them with their firearms."
Amon claims similar centers in Denver, Colorado, Columbus, Ohio and New York City had proven successful in driving down gun crimes in those cities.
Chicago has a long history of gun violence, dating to the organized crime rings of the 1920s and 1930s. Since the 1960s the city has nearly tripled its per capita spending on law enforcement, and its police budget has grown from $1.68 billion to $1.99 billion since 2020. However, the announcement of the new crime gun intelligence center also comes amid a controversy over the ShotSpotter gunshot detection technology.
The city has made use of the ShotSpotter system, which is spread almost exclusively over the city's predominately Black and brown south and west sides, since 2018. Despite paying ShotSpotter's parent company $49 million for use of the system since then, the city's Office of the Inspector General concluded in August 2021 that ShotSpotter alerts "rarely produce documented evidence of a gun-related crime, investigatory stop, or recovery of a firearm."
Activists and community organizers also claimed the system allowed police to intrusively surveil and profile minority communities. The OIG concluded similar, writing in 2021 that "at least some officers, at least some of the time," use ShotSpotter alerts to rationalize stops and pat-downs.
Progressive Mayor Brandon Johnson announced last February that the city would end its contract with ShotSpotter in September, following the Democratic National Convention in August. But over a dozen city councilors, representing areas of the city with relatively high shooting rates, opposed the cancellation.
University of Illinois Chicago criminology professor Rahim Kurwa, who studies how race and policing affect each other, said SoundThinking had those alders in a "hostage situation."
"If you are the alderperson who says no to ShotSpotter, because it is inefficient or unjustified, you set yourself up for criticism if a violent crime does occur in your ward," Kurwa said.
At a city council meeting on Wednesday, the pro-ShotSpotter alders hoped to pass an ordinance which would allow individual city wards to decide if they wanted to continue contracting with ShotSpotter or not. An ally of Mayor Johnson, city councilor Daniel La Spata, used a parliamentary maneuver to delay the vote on that measure.
Follow @djbyrnes1
Subscribe to Closing Arguments
Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.
