Page 32 - January 2018

ShotSpotter
and make a profound impact on dai- ly policing.
“You should see the looks on peo- ple’s faces,” Menoni confides about the roll-call visits. “With all the differ- ent components, it’s almost like they are shocked at how much informa- tion they are getting.”
Nothing promotes belief in the system like success, and 2017 produced credible numbers of ac- complishment. Districts with a SDSC – 006, 007, 009, 010 and 015 in addi- tion to 011 – have shown a 20 percent
reduction in shootings over 2016. In Englewood, which is part of the 7th District, shootings are down 40 per- cent. In the first three months of deployment in 011, av- erage response time to a 9-1-1 call dropped to 5.8 min- utes, down from 9.6 minutes at the same time in 2016.
Genetec
POD
HunchLab
SPOT ON CONTINUED FROM PAGE 31
from the SDSC. “It makes the job easier. This is the wave of the future.”
Shot On
Groundbreaking outcomes and the (trail)blazing pace ra- diating from the SDSC only begins with the pops and flashes from ShotSpotter, the Points of Display (POD) crime cameras and accompanying systems that make the room so innovative- ly strategic. When ShotSpotter goes off in 011, for example, it’s not uncommon for a crowd to rush to the room and track the incident and speedy response. Officers, supervisors and com- mand staff alike want to see.
Menoni tries to schedule trips to the restroom around 11 a.m. “But every time Jorge says he will back in two minutes, something happens,” she tells.
With ShotSpotter going off, classifying clusters of incidents, response and often hot pursuit, the urgency is palpable. Gene- tec, the software that links the POD cameras to an interactive mapping tool dotting where guns went off and drug deals went down, and HunchLab, which crunches data to forecast when and where crimes are likely to emerge, swell the wave of pro- activity in the SDSC.
To maximize the effectiveness of predicting behavior, SDSC staff also includes a civilian criminal intelligence analyst. In 011, that is Yesenia Ortiz, whose prep for this detail came as a U.S. Army Intelligence Analyst assigned to the counter terror- ism and force protection missions in support of the 2012 Sum- mer Olympics in London, among other large-scale operations.
At 1 p.m. Monday through Friday, Ortiz, or the sergeant as- signed to the room, leads a briefing that the 011 SDSC team presents to the district commander, district intelligence of- ficers and supervisors from gangs, narcotics and other units who are available. Cook County State’s Attorney Marny Zim- mer often conferences in to these presentations that detail data to further investigations, show PowerPoint slides of clus- ters where the past day’s shootings occurred and where the next day’s are likely to occur and advise of locations where an officer might be ambushed.
The team will reformat some of the slides and sbrief all roll calls. Roll call visits help build the culture of understanding how the technology integrates with the experience on the beat
32 CHICAGO LODGE 7 ■ JANUARY 2018
Following the implementation and deployment in 011 and 007, other districts that came online in 2017 should show similar success. In addition to procuring dona- tions from organizations like the Chicago Police Foundation to meet the $1.5 million cost of setting up an SDSC, the City is staffing up officers to maximize opportunities to reduce crime
and deter violence.
But here’s what the advent of ShotSpotter, Genetec and
HunchLab might mean most to Chicago Police Officers.
“We all get calls or complaints all the time that police aren’t doing anything,” Menoni submits. “But now we are getting alerts of shots fired within 20 seconds. We’re sending response immediately. We are responding to all these things that are happening in people’s neighborhoods and it backs up that we
are doing our jobs.”
Sweet Spot
That a supervisor asked Menoni what she knew about technology a year ago, and she modestly replied, “absolutely nothing,” reinforces that ShotSpotter and the accompanying software are tools to help beat cops address the growing chal- lenges and be safer. She has obviously progressed a bit from having to ask her husband Joe, a sergeant in 012, for help when her cellphone went on the fritz. But it’s the 14 years working the street that creates recognition of data that comes out of the center to augment policing.
Having Rodriguez split his time between a beat car and the SDSC is at the heart of the mission to make district intelligence and real-time data analysis a formidable asset in the crime fight. Only a beat cop, it seems, can bring the intel from the street to optimize the POD camera reviewing.
“Anything that happens in the district, Jorge will find it on camera,” Menoni extolls. “Jorge can catch it all because he knows the streets.”
It’s a two-way street that Rodriguez notes has become in- valuable.
“Actually, being in here gives you a different perspective be- cause as officers on the street we can be somewhat skeptical,” he articulates. “The reason why we’re doing this, embracing this technology, is because it helps officers become better in- vestigators. And I really like the officer safety impact.”
As Ortiz uses the data to analyze crime patterns through HunchLab, the mission to get out in front of crimes becomes more audible. When 007 put the first SDSC online in late Janu- ary 2017 and 011 came on in early February, analysts from the
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