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Own Your Agency's Story Best Practices for Public Information Officers
Save Lives and Find Critical Evidence with The Leading Gunshot Detection System
Locate Shootings in Seconds for Rapid Precise Response
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THE CHALLENGE FOR LAW ENFORCEMENT
Gun Violence is an Epidemic. 80% of Shootings are NEVER called in.
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Gun violence in America’s cities is a devastating epidemic. It has killed more than 65,000 individuals and injured several hundred thousand in just the last five years. What’s more devastating – 80% of gunfire incidents are never reported to police.
Criminals are evolving, so we have to evolve too. Be proactive against gun violence with ShotSpotter. It’s like a digitized 911 call for gunshots that is faster and more accurate than our 50+ year old emergency call system to make sure your agency knows about all gunfire and can respond immediately to help save a life.
THE FIGHT AGAINST GUN VIOLENCE
Impact of ShotSpotteron Gun Violence
PROTECT & SERVE
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ENHANCE INVESTIGATIONS
- Recover more shell casings with precise location of shots fired
- Locate more witnesses
- Identify shooters faster
- Disrupt the shooting cycle
SHOTSPOTTER FORENSIC SERVICES
- ShotSpotter Forensic Services and Litigation Support provides services including critical examination of ShotSpotter evidentiary data and reports to help improve understanding of a shooting incident. Services include:
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Investigative Lead Summary (ILS), a report that provides valuable data on the location, sequence and timing of each round fired in a gun shooting incident.
- Detailed Forensic Report (DFR), a court-admissible analysis of a shooting incident captured by the ShotSpotter system produced by expert forensic engineers.
- Expert Witness Services, which includes additional trial preparation and testimony services. ShotSpotter evidence and ShotSpotter expert witness testimony have been successfully admitted in over 200 court cases in 22 states including the District of Columbia.
INTEGRATION SERVICES
Gunfire alerts can be integrated directly with multiple technology platforms for immediate benefit such as:
- Point and zoom cameras toward gunfire incident
- Display gunshot location on crime maps in real-time
- Gunshot incident data can be set up to automatically transfer to CAD/RMS/Crime Analysis Tools
Many agencies are integrating (or have integrated) ShotSpotter gunshot alert data with other platforms using our push API (Notification API), empowering law enforcement agencies across the county to achieve digital transformation. Our gunshot alert data can be integrated with license plate readers, RMS, CAD, predictive policing software, crime dashboards, access controls, geospatial software, and drones.
ShotSpotter Delivers Results
SHOTSPOTTER IMPACT
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After almost 30 years in law enforcement, I’ve yet to find a more profound and proven way to increase community/police relations than ShotSpotter.
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Ultimately, ShotSpotter gunfire data enables us to save lives by rendering aid to victims immediately, improve evidence collection, prosecution and overall police effectiveness.
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[The ShotSpotter] technology is needed and necessary if we are to make safety a priority in our communities and in our city.
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We can't have a violent crime violence reduction strategy if we don't know about 80% of the gunfire...To me 2 lives saved, 47 guns recovered and a police response to 80% more of the crime is pretty exceptional.
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As we continue working with the community to build a safer, stronger DC, ShotSpotter helps us better focus and deploy resources to save lives and get guns off our streets.
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The ShotSpotter technology targets [gun] violence, quickly puts our officers where they’re needed, and helps us identify shooters, while building trust and restoring peace in the challenged communities we serve.
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[ShotSpotter] is saving us time, making us more efficient and allowing us to solve crimes, and to link crimes … the linking of the shell casings allows us to see trends, see pictures and to realize if we’re having a spike in a certain group, and be able to address those needs better.
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ShotSpotter is an always present and unbiased source of information for us. We don’t have to rely on people to call 9-1-1. It’s always listening.
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To stop gun violence, we need to know where it’s occurring and ShotSpotter has detected hundreds of shootings that would have otherwise gone unreported. Our expansion of ShotSpotter is helping us reduce crime and make our neighborhoods safer.
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ShotSpotter has been a game changer here in Chicago. We are correlating more shootings based on the evidence collected from the exact location.
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ShotSpotter is an important forensic tool that is more reliable than witnesses. My office relies on it to provide hard evidence on which gun fired first and from what precise location to help prosecute criminals.
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I’m without 15 officers is a huge amount for Salinas. I have to use technology to augment what we do, to keep my community safe. I need this technology to keep us safe.
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Everything we do in our lives requires technology. This ShotSpotter technology will help make Cleveland a safer city.
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Since the city first adopted the ShotSpotter program in 2014, the homicide rate has plummeted by 35%. Gunshot incidents as an activity has been reduced by about 50% in the same period of time.
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We’re seeing a 40% reduction in gun violence in areas we’re using ShotSpotter. We’re proud to be a ShotSpotter city.
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[ShotSpotter] is like the intelligence network for how we respond to crime, how we solve crime… I think more importantly, this is one of our major linchpins for how we prevent crime.
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We are a smaller city, but are no less susceptible to the ravages of gun violence in our community...In just the first three months we have already seen very impressive results.
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Giving agencies of our size access to this important tool is critical for increasing the effectiveness of the investigations of shots fired calls and makes a statement that our city is taking proactive steps to reduce gun violence.
What is ShotSpotter?
Police rely on the community to call 9-1-1 if gunshots are fired, but only 20% of incidents are ever reported on average. This creates a situation where police departments have a large data gap that makes it difficult to be able to effectively “serve and protect” when it comes to gun violence. SoundThinking’s ShotSpotter acoustic gunshot detection technology fills the gap with a network of acoustic sensors that can detect, locate, and alert police to nearly all gunshot incidents. The system is in operation in more than 170 cities and is used by police to: 1) be able to respond to a higher percentage of gunfire incidents; 2) improve response times to crime scenes to better aid victims and find witnesses; and 3) help police locate key evidence to identify and investigate suspects.
How does ShotSpotter work?
ShotSpotter uses an array of acoustic sensors that are connected wirelessly to ShotSpotter’s centralized, cloud-based application to reliably detect and accurately locate gunshots using triangulation. Each acoustic sensor captures the precise time and audio associated with impulsive sounds that may represent gunfire. This data is used to locate the incident and is then filtered by sophisticated machine algorithms to classify the event as a potential gunshot. Acoustic experts, who are located and staffed in ShotSpotter’s 24×7 Incident Review Center, ensure and confirm that the events are indeed gunfire. They can append the alert with other critical intelligence such as whether a fully automatic weapon was fired or whether there are multiple shooters. This entire process takes less than 60 seconds from the time of the shooting to the digital alert popping onto a screen of a computer in the 911 Call Center or on a patrol officer’s smartphone or mobile laptop.
What types of cities use ShotSpotter?
ShotSpotter is used in more than 170 cities and is highly regarded by law enforcement as a critical component of gun violence prevention and reduction strategies. ShotSpotter protects a wide range of city types and sizes ranging from urban metropolitan cities such as Las Vegas and New York City; to medium-sized cities such as Boston, Denver, and Oakland; and small cities with populations less than 50,000 such as Richmond, CA and Pleasantville, NJ.
How effective is ShotSpotter?
Gunshot detection by itself is not a panacea for gun violence, but if used as part of a comprehensive gun crime response strategy, it can contribute to a reduction in response times, help to save the lives of GSWs, and improve evidence collection rates. Please visit Results for more details.
How accurate is SoundThinking's ShotSpotter gunshot detection solution?
The ShotSpotter system is highly accurate at detecting outdoor gunshots. From 2019-2021 the system had a 97% aggregate accuracy rate across all of our customers, including a very small false positive rate of less than 0.5% of all reported gunfire incidents.
Is ShotSpotter surveillance equipment? Do the sensors listen to conversations?
An independent privacy audit conducted by NYU’s Policing Project concluded that the risk of voice surveillance is extremely limited. Strict controls and policies ensure sensors only trigger on loud explosive or impulsive sounds that are likely gunfire. No community member’s information is obtained or used during any part of the detection or alerting process. Learn more about community privacy protections here.
Does ShotSpotter cause over-policing?
ShotSpotter provides police with a tool to respond to and investigate gunshot incidents in a more precise area compared to the 9-1-1 system to avoid canvassing entire blocks or neighborhoods. There is zero data supporting the claim that ShotSpotter puts police on high alert or creates dangerous situations. Rather, ShotSpotter equips police officers with more information than they might typically have when arriving to the scene of a gunshot incident, and they arrive at the scene more situationally aware. Additionally, ShotSpotter provides intelligence that allows police to coordinate a safe and efficient response, requiring fewer resources, and in a way that can enhance community trust.
Can I buy ShotSpotter for my house?
Right now, we do not have a solution for individual community members. However, you can write a letter to your local elected officials to request ShotSpotter for your neighborhood.
What should I do if I hear gunshots in my neighborhood?
Regardless of whether your city has deployed ShotSpotter, you should still call 9-11- and notify the police. You may not be in a ShotSpotter coverage area as it typically doesn’t cover an entire city. Over 80% of gun crimes go unreported and your call could help save lives. If you’re in a city that has not deployed ShotSpotter, consider reaching out to your local police department or local city council to express your concerns about public safety and to see if they have any plans to implement gunshot detection technology.
What other products does SoundThinking offer as part of its SafetySmart Platform?
SoundThinking offers:
- CrimeTracer™, the #1 law enforcement search engine that enables investigators to search through more than 1.3B structured and unstructured data across jurisdictions to obtain immediate tactical leads, leverage advanced link analysis to make intelligent connections, link NIBIN leads to reports, suspects, and other entities, and more.
- CaseBuilder™, a smarter investigation management platform that enables investigative teams to efficiently organize and store case information, track and prioritize assignments, optimize resources, submit materials to prosecution, and more.
- CaseBuilder™ Crime Gun, the first-of-its-kind gun crime tracking and analysis case management tool that enables agencies to better capture, track, prioritize, analyze, and collaborate on incidents that involve firearms.
- ResourceRouter™ , is a resource management tool that automates the planning of directed patrols and provides transparency around engagement activities across an entire jurisdiction, daily.