14-year-old found lying dead on street previously monitored by ShotSpotter

CHICAGO — Yet another murder victim has been found lying alone on a street previously monitored by the ShotSpotter gunfire detection system. He is at least the third person found fatally shot without any 911 calls reporting gunfire since Mayor Brandon Johnson ended the city’s relationship with ShotSpotter on September 22.

Police received a call of a person down in the 3500 block of West Cermak around 11:47 p.m. Tuesday, according to Chicago police. Officers found the victim, who had suffered gunshot wounds to his back, chest and arm. He was pronounced dead shortly after midnight.

Officials have not released the victim’s age; however, a source familiar with the investigation said he appeared to be a teenager. (Update: According to the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office, the boy was 14.)

Officers found shell casings and a firearm near the victim. A source familiar with the investigation said they believe the boy was shot about 45 minutes before he was found.

The most recent reports of shots fired in the local police district came about 30 minutes before the victim was found. Those callers believed the shots came from Douglass Park, which is several blocks from the shooting scene.

Ald. Monique Scott (24th) represents the block where the victim was found. She was an outspoken supporter of ShotSpotter.

“We’re basically going to play Russian roulette without constituents’ lives,” Scott said a couple of weeks ago as she and 32 of her City Council colleagues voted in favor of an action that could have kept ShotSpotter active in the city. Only 14 aldermen, many of whom represent the city’s safest neighborhoods where ShotSpotter was never deployed, voted against the measure.

During the City Council debate, Scott spoke directly to Johnson, who vowed to pull the plug on ShotSpotter during his run for mayor in 2023.

“You said you have [made] a campaign promise,” Scott said, “but you can’t put a life over a campaign promise. Put those people that you promised on hold to protect everybody in the city.”

Earlier on Tuesday, another murder victim was found lying alone on a different West Side street.

At about 9:30 a.m. Saturday, a man called 911 to report that a woman had been lying in the same spot in his alley behind the 9500 block of South Avenue N since at least the day before, according to police dispatch records. Responding officers discovered the woman, 19-year-old Sierra Evans, had been fatally shot. Shell casings were lying next to her. But one reported the shots that killed Evans.

More than nine hours before Evans was found, ShotSpotter devices still deployed in the area captured the sounds of gunfire at the murder scene. But, because the city no longer uses the company’s services, police were unaware of the shooting.

About this series

As of 12:01 a.m. on September 23, 2024, Chicago terminated its relationship with ShotSpotter, a gunfire detection system deployed in 12 of the city’s most violence-impacted neighborhoods.

Mayor Brandon Johnson stubbornly refused to reconsider his decision to dismantle ShotSpotter, even though the vast majority of aldermen, many citizens, victim’s advocates, and his handpicked police superintendent requested that it remain in place.

This reporting series, named “Brandon’s Bodies,” seeks to document cases of shooting victims and police investigations that could have benefited from gunshot detection technology.

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