Mayor seeks city funding for gunshot locater technology
Acoustic detection an aid for police
By James Vaznis, Globe Staff | January 22, 2007
Mayor Thomas M. Menino plans to ask the City Council on Wednesday to approve spending $1.5 million to place dozens of special sensors in the city's most violent neighborhoods so police can know when and where a shooting has occurred within seconds of a gun being fired.
The sensors would send information to the city's emergency dispatch center, where the coordinates of the shot would flash on an electronic map of the neighborhood, enabling the operator to immediately dispatch police and an ambulance to the scene before ever fielding a 911 call .
If the council approves the request, the system could be up and running by summer, officials said.
"We need more tools in our arsenal to track shootings and have police on the scene within seconds, as the crime is being perpetrated," Menino said in a telephone interview yesterday. "Delays always give criminals a chance to leave the scene."
Police Commissioner Edward F. Davis , who said earlier this month that he wanted to carefully study whether the system is the best way to use limited public safety resources, said the sensors would probably be installed in Mattapan, Roxbury, and Dorchester. The sensors would be placed on the tops of buildings or other tall objects, and each could detect a gun shot from a mile away, he said.
The technology is known as an acoustic gunshot-detection system and the city plans to buy it from a California company, ShotSpotter Inc. During a test of the system on Saturday at the department's shooting range at Moon Island, the sensors pinpointed gunshots within feet of where officers fired a gun, Davis said.
Eventually, the department could supplement the sensors with video cameras, which could zoom in on the scene within seconds of the gunshots, possibly capturing images of the shooter, Davis said. The department tried out a camera on Saturday, too.
"We want to get the sensors running first and then look at the cameras," Davis said.
Menino and Davis said they hope the system helps the department improve its rate of solving cases. Police arrested or identified suspects in only 23 percent of 610 cases involving shootings or brandishing a gun last year. Of the 74 homicides last year, 54 were from gunshots.
The sensors have the backing of City Council President Maureen E. Feeney and Councilor Robert Consalvo , who has been pushing for the purchase since February.
Other cities using similar technology include Chicago, Minneapolis, Washington, D.C., Oakland, Calif., Charleston, S.C., and Rochester, N.Y.
