This week, the Illinois State Police (ISP) debuted a new tool to help track expressway shootings statewide.
On Wednesday, ISP introduced an interactive Statewide Expressway Shooting (SES) dashboard that tracks current and historical data regarding reported expressway shooting incidents on all expressways in Illinois. Troopers say that the tool is intended to provide not only data but context for expressway shootings.
The SES dashboard currently provides information on all Illinois expressway shootings from 2019 through the present day. Users will also be able to access information concerning the location, date and time, specific Illinois Highway System, and whether there was a reported injury or death.
“One of the main goals of the SES dashboard is to be timely and transparent by displaying the latest reported expressway shooting information. The (SES) dashboard will display specific data relating to each reported expressway shooting located throughout the state,” ISP said in a news release.
“We want to provide this information to the general public, community stakeholders, our traffic safety partners, other first responders, and our law enforcement partners to assure them that we are committed to our mission of ensuring public safety on our expressway systems,” said ISP Director Brendan F. Kelly. “Knowing when and where these violent crimes are being committed, provides us with another tool to combating these violent and senseless crimes.”
Several truck drivers have been targeted during Illinois highway shootings over the past several years. See below for some examples.