Last year, in late May, the United States saw nationwide protests, as a result of George Floyd being killed by Minneapolis PD Officer, Derek Chauvin. Chauvin ended up being found guilty, a few months ago, as justice was served, with him heading to prison. At the time of Floyd’s killing, tensions were high in the US, as there were peaceful protests as well as things turning violent.
In Chicago, a 64-year-old Black man named Michael Williams was said to have shot and killed 25-Year-Old Safarain Herring, on the southside of Chicago, during the Floyd protests. This occurred on May 31, where Herring died, two days later. Williams was said to have dropped Herring off at St. Bernard Hospital after the shooting.
Williams defended his name by saying that Herring was killed by a drive-by shooter. Williams initially picked up Herring from a local South Shore Auto Zone, which was being looted. Herring was reportedly shot at 11:46PM at the address of 6300 block of South Stony Island Avenue.
Now, according to a report by Vice, ShotSpotter, a surveillance system that uses hidden microphone sensors to detect sounds and location of gunshots, supposedly set an alert for that location and the time of the sound that went off. This report is now saying that this isn’t exactly what happened, though.
19 ShotSpotter sensors detected a sound at 11:46, and found that the actual address of the shooting was 5700 South Lake Shore Drive, a mile where Williams is said to have committed the shooting. A firework sound was what was initially found, but a SpotShotter analyst eventually overrode algorithms, and “reclassified” the sound as a gun shot. A few months later, another SpotShotter analyst changed the original alert’s coordinates to the South Stony Island Drive, where Williams’ car was.
“Through this human-involved method, the ShotSpotter output in this case was dramatically transformed from data that did not support criminal charges of any kind to data that now forms the centerpiece of the prosecution’s murder case against Mr. Williams,” said a public defender wrote in a motion filed.
Prosecutors soon withdrew all evidence against Williams, instead of going to a Fyre hearing, which would’ve tried to upheld what was put into the SpotShotter system.
Here is the more important element to this.
The case isn’t an anomaly, and the pattern it represents could have huge ramifications for ShotSpotter in Chicago, where the technology generates an average of 21,000 alerts each year. The technology is also currently in use in more than 100 cities.
Motherboard’s review of court documents from the Williams case and other trials in Chicago and New York State, including testimony from ShotSpotter’s favored expert witness, suggests that the company’s analysts frequently modify alerts at the request of police departments—some of which appear to be grasping for evidence that supports their narrative of events.
Here is an example of cops faking a report.
In 2016, Rochester, New York, police looking for a suspicious vehicle stopped the wrong car and shot the passenger, Silvon Simmons, in the back three times. They charged him with firing first at officers.
The only evidence against Simmons came from ShotSpotter. Initially, the company’s sensors didn’t detect any gunshots, and the algorithms ruled that the sounds came from helicopter rotors. After Rochester police contacted ShotSpotter, an analyst ruled that there had been four gunshots—the number of times police fired at Simmons, missing once.
Paul Greene, ShotSpotter’s expert witness and an employee of the company, testified at Simmons’ trial that “subsequently he was asked by the Rochester Police Department to essentially search and see if there were more shots fired than ShotSpotter picked up,” according to a civil lawsuit Simmons has filed against the city and the company. Greene found a fifth shot, despite there being no physical evidence at the scene that Simmons had fired. Rochester police had also refused his multiple requests for them to test his hands and clothing for gunshot residue.
Defund the cops.
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