Chicago PD constantly surveilled a man after its predictive policing system said he'd be involved in a shooting, but not whether he'd be the shooter or victim
ROBERT MCDANIEL'S TROUBLES — began with a knock on the door. It was a weekday in mid-2013, as he made lunch … Tweets: @sub8u , @carnage4life , @verge , @starfire2258 , @pebonilla , @h_liyan , and @reckless Tweets: Subrahmanyam Kvj / @sub8u : Seen “Person of Interest”? Or “Minority Report”? They sure were prescient! Algorithm predicts an individual could be involved as the perpetrator, or victim, in a violent crime. And thro' hyper-surveillance, made it a sorta self-fulfilling prediction! https://www.theverge.com/... Dare Obasanjo / @carnage4life : In 2013, Chicago police were using algorithms to predict gun violence. It recommended people to target based on if they had relationships to victims and/or shooters. One man was followed by cops so much drug dealers assumed he was a snitch and shot him. https://www.theverge.com/... @verge : An automated policing program put his name on a list. He says it got him shot—twice https://www.theverge.com/... https://twitter.com/... Sean Hollister / @starfire2258 : You know Minority Report, the famous story about how trying to predict crime can become a self-fulfilling prophecy? Meet Robert McDaniel. https://www.theverge.com/... Peter Bonilla / @pebonilla : How getting on Chicago's Heat List as a likely future victim or perpetrator of gun crime became its own self-fulfilling prophecy, putting a target on Robert McDaniel's back and, quite possibly, leading to his being shot twice. Remarkable, chilling, pure sci-fi, except very real. https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/... Hasitha Liyanage / @h_liyan : This is both unbelievable and incredibly frightening. Minority Report was supposed to be a cautionary tale, not a handbook. https://twitter.com/... Nilay Patel / @reckless : Chicago built a predictive policing system that led the cops to tell Robert McDaniels he'd be involved in a shooting — but couldn't say if he'd be the shooter or the victim. Then they surveilled him relentlessly. A truly dystopian story from @MattStroud https://www.theverge.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
Robert McDaniel's case shows the human cost of a system the NYT had already mapped at scale: algorithms now setting police patrols, prison sentences, and probation rules across the US and Europe. Chicago's model flagged McDaniel as likely to be involved in a shooting without distinguishing shooter from victim — and the surveillance that followed preceded him being shot twice himself.
Chicago's program is also a cautionary data point for other departments. The Guardian's reporting on how LAPD's successor effort resembles PredPol and Operation Laser, both shut down amid public outcry, suggests cities keep rebuilding these systems even as their predecessors collapse under scrutiny.
First-order effects
- McDaniel bore the direct consequences: constant police attention after the flag, then being shot twice — an outcome tied to the very list meant to predict his involvement in violence.
Second-order effects
- Public backlash against person-based prediction pressures vendors and departments: Banjo-style surveillance platforms and autonomous drone programs in California and Georgia now face the same civil-rights questions that killed PredPol.
Third-order effects
- If person-level flags keep producing self-fulfilling outcomes — surveillance escalating risk rather than preventing harm — the industry may be pushed toward place- and event-based tools like Banjo's emergency-flagging model, while legislatures and courts face growing pressure to define liability for algorithmic policing.
The trend: Predictive policing is cycling through rebuild-after-scandal iterations, with individual-targeting systems giving way to area- and event-based tools under sustained civil-rights scrutiny.