Mayor de Blasio and Police Commissioner Bratton on Monday announced that the NYPD has begun to use the ShotSpotter system. Photo Courtesy of NYPD.
Unveiling the administration’s latest step in shepherding the Police Department into the Technology Age, Mayor Bill de Blasio and Police Commissioner Bill Bratton this week announced the deployment of new gunshot detection technology that they said will decrease officer response times to gunshot incidents and enhance community and public safety.
According to the NYPD, the ShotSpotter system triangulates the location of a gunshot to within 25 meters of where the shot was fired. It then forwards a notification to an incident review center where a trained operator listens to the audio file to determine if the sound was that of a gunshot or some other similar-sounding audio incident, such as fireworks or an engine backfiring. Once the incident is determined to be a gunshot, an alert is sent to the NYPD via the Domain Awareness System. This alert includes relevant information such as number of shots fired, location of the gunshot, if the shooter was mobile at the time of the incident, and the direction of the shooter’s movement. Upon receipt of such an alert, the department can dispatch units to the location of the shooting.
Calling the system “another tool” that will become part of the “NYPD’s technological crimefighting capabilities,” Bratton indicated that the department will pilot the program in five zones of approximately three square miles each located within various precincts in Brooklyn and the Bronx. He added that ShotSpotter, which was developed by a California-based company, will “enable us to respond to shooting incidents in a more timely manner, and provide us with the ability to help victims, solve crimes and apprehend dangerous suspects more quickly.”
The ShotSpotter technology will allow the NYPD to dispatch officers to the exact location of a shooting, rather than a general area, which has potential to save valuable time and resources and increase the likelihood that the shooter will be identified and caught, victims will receive aid, and evidence and witnesses will be available. It has the potential to allow police officers to respond to gunshot incidents that may otherwise go unreported to the police.
Based on the results of the pilot program, the administration said it anticipates incorporating the ShotSpotter alerts in the DAS mobile application, allowing officers to receive alerts directly on their smartphone or tablet devices, which were provided to members through the $160 million NYPD Mobility Initiative that was established last October.
By Michael V. Cusenza michael@theforumnewsgroup.com
