Gunshot detection technology has been rolled out in various cities across the country as an aid to law enforcement agencies for both tracking and reporting firearm violence. ShotSpotter, one such system deployed in parts of Virginia and Chicago, among other locations, is designed to detect audible gunshot signals and determine the location of the report. … Read more
Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler has decided to move forward with a controversial technology that claims to detect and pinpoint gunshots throughout the city. The Focused Intervention Team’s Community Oversight Group, or FITCOG, recommended the city adopt ShotSpotter in a July report. That report called the technology “a focused deterrence tool as part of the overarching … Read more
By Don Babwin and Garance Burke, AP A gunshot detection system that has cost Chicago tens of millions of dollars and is touted as a critical component of the police department’s effort to combat gun violence rarely produces evidence of gun-related crime in the city, Chicago’s nonpartisan watchdog agency concluded. In a scathing report released … Read more
In addition to [ShotSpotter’s] history of false positives, the danger it poses to pedestrians and residents, and the company’s dubious record of altering data at the behest of police departments, there is also a civil liberties concern posed by the fact that these microphones intended to detect gunshots can also record human voices. Yet people … Read more
Depending on who’s doing the counting, Baltimore consistently shows up among the most violent cities in the US. Charm City’s known for its crab cakes, its public corruption and the number of people shot to death on the city’s streets every year. With a record like that, you might think a cash-strapped city with huge … Read more
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