Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara says department would "know zero" about automatic gunfire without ShotSpotter
MINNEAPOLIS — There is a new campaign encouraging the city of Minneapolis to drop its contract with ShotSpotter, the technology spread across the city that picks up the sound of gunfire.
There are dueling narratives about the data and whether ShotSpotter is making a difference.
For proprietary and security reasons, the Minneapolis Police Department and ShotSpotter won't share exactly how many ShotSpotter monitors there are in Minneapolis.
ShotSpotter is also deployed in some 150 cities across the country. That number, though, no longer includes one big former customer — Chicago.
Here's how it works: An acoustic sensor picks up the sound of gunshots and potentially the kind of weapon. It sets off an alert to 911 dispatch, which then passes that information to police.
According to ShotSpotter's parent company, SoundThinking, ShotSpotter is critical to detecting many possible gun crimes that could otherwise go unreported.
"This is a tool. It is just a tool. It's an important one. It's a unique one, but like any other tool, it depends on how you use it," Tom Chittum said. "It's not the hammer that builds the house, it's the carpenter."
In Chicago, the city is ending its contract after a report from the city's inspector general found just 9% of ShotSpotter detections actually provided evidence of criminal activity.
"The operational value of ShotSpotter is ultimately a question of relative costs and benefits," the report says. "Such a value is not clearly demonstrated by presently available data."
ShotSpotter has been deployed in Minneapolis since 2007 and costs taxpayers roughly $168,000 a year.
There's now a movement to get rid of it here too.
"People are being arrested who shouldn't be arrested," said Hersch Izek with the Legal Rights Center. "People are being inconvenienced who shouldn't be inconvenienced. Those are the issues. Plus harassment in minority communities."
MPD Chief Brian O'Hara vehemently disagrees and argues ShotSpotter's impact can't be measured on a spreadsheet.
"We would know nothing about automatic gunfire in the city of Minneapolis without ShotSpotter. We would know zero," he said.
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This year, homicides are down more than 15% compared to this time last year.
Police calls for gunshots, meanwhile are the lowest since May 2020.
"We're trying to talk about saving people's lives, and if we're getting first aid to people minutes faster because we have this, I don't understand what the debate is," O'Hara said.
Minneapolis is currently the only city in Minnesota to deploy ShotSpotter.
St. Paul's former police chief was in favor of bringing it there, but the proposal was ultimately turned down.