CHICAGO (AP) – As Chicago police released statistics that show no letup in the death toll that captured the nation’s attention last year and sparked a tweet last week from President Donald Trump, the head of the department on Wednesday unveiled new high-tech strategies and equipment for fighting crime.
Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson demonstrated how officers will use software to almost immediately learn when and where someone has fired a gun. At the news conference in a police district considered to be one of the city’s two most violent, Johnson also showed his audience a computer system that will help police predict where violence might erupt.
Chicago has been at the center of the debate about gun violence even before it finished last year with 762 homicides – a total higher than those of New York and Los Angeles combined. With a third of those killings occurring in one neighborhood on the South Side and one on the West Side, the department decided to open its first two Strategic Decision Support Centers in those neighborhoods.
“We are changing the crime-fighting culture within the Chicago Police Department,” Johnson said, adding that he believes the technology will lead to more arrests of violent criminals and thus a reduction in the number of homicides and shootings.
Johnson was set to announce the initiatives last week but had a dizzy spell at the news conference. He later explained that he had taken blood pressure medicine on an empty stomach.