ShotSpotter is firing again at Bay State elected officers who’re pushing for a federal probe of the gunshot detection tech firm, because the agency’s CEO mentioned the politicians had been spreading “numerous recycled falsehoods and misleading assertions.”
The pinnacle of SoundThinking, previously often called ShotSpotter, wrote a letter this week to Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Sen. Ed Markey and Rep. Ayanna Pressley in response to the legislators’ letter to the Division of Homeland Safety to open an investigation into DHS grant funding of the ShotSpotter system.
SoundThinking CEO Ralph Clark within the letter emphasizes that the senators and rep had been misinformed by inaccurate and debunked claims in regards to the acoustic gunshot detection tech. Clark all through the letter careworn the expertise “helps save lives.”
He cites Boston Mayor Michelle Wu’s assist for the Boston Police Division’s use of ShotSpotter, together with a latest BPD arrest that adopted a ShotSpotter alert.
“With all due respect, your letter—which we first heard about from media outlets—draws from selected news reports and studies that have been proven incorrect, incomplete or unreliable,” Clark wrote to the lawmakers.
“While I welcome all interest in our technology, I am concerned that your understanding of ShotSpotter is based on numerous recycled falsehoods and misleading assertions that do not hold up to hard facts and accurate information,” he added.
Greater than 80% of gunfire incidents go unreported to 911, in line with a Brookings examine cited within the letter.
Clark famous that ShotSpotter was created to: assist bridge gaps within the 911 reporting system, assist police rapidly reply to capturing incidents, render assist to gunshot wound victims, improve proof assortment, enhance the chance of arresting suspects, and extra.
“Our technology only knows the sounds of gunshots, and we’re detecting and alerting on gunfire, which has no notion of race, gender, sexual orientation, religion or anything like that,” Clark instructed the Herald on Tuesday. “That’s been a kind of trope that’s been rehashed out there from critics from time-to-time, but it’s completely false and not the case at all.”
The ShotSpotter system alerts police to nearly all gunfire in a neighborhood’s protection space inside 60 seconds, he mentioned.
“Communities are better off when police are able to be notified precisely in real-time fashion of where guns are being fired, so they can be dispatched to those locations very quickly,” Clark instructed the Herald. “It helps them save lives, recover physical forensic evidence in the form of shell casings.
“And I think the most important thing it shows to these communities that are besieged with gun violence is that the department is prioritizing a response to gun violence,” he added. “That they care about it, and they’re trying to make a difference and help these communities be safer.”
Amid pushback from her progressive counterparts, Wu has strongly backed the police division’s plans to proceed utilizing ShotSpotter. She mentioned the expertise has led to “countless instances” of lives being saved within the metropolis.
Wu mentioned the town’s technique to make use of it primarily in minority communities aligns not solely with knowledge that reveals gun violence disproportionately happens in these areas, however with suggestions from residents there who typically say they need a sooner police response and higher surveillance.
The town pays $782,610 underneath its present contract for the ShotSpotter expertise. A number of metropolis councilors had been pushing for a contract delay given the considerations raised in a report issued final month by the ACLU, which discovered that just about 70% of ShotSpotter alerts resulted in no proof of gunfire from 2020-22. Boston Police data have debunked a key instance in that report.
Clark in his letter repeated that ShotSpotter is correct, efficient, and that leaders of communities of colour embrace the expertise.
“The only bias in this matter lies not with ShotSpotter, but in those opponents who continue to ignore objective facts in favor of their preconceived narratives propagated through false and misleading assertions made to the press and through studies, some of which have been proven incorrect and/or unreliable,” he added.
Clark invited the officers to go to the corporate’s Incident Evaluation Middle in Washington, D.C., the place they will see an illustration of the expertise.
SoundThinking – Response letter to Congress
