Out of 11 shooting incidents since July 1, the much-vaunted ShotSpotter system detected four. The others were "on the perimeter of the coverage area," Public Safety Director Martin Hellwig told the City Council Monday.
The system may now require more acoustic sensors, Hellwig said.
Introduced two years ago with a $1 million price tag, the system resurfaced in 2011 as a lease program for $169,000 annually. The City Council approved the lease plan in June 2011, but instead of the promised "turnkey operation," the company ran into problems with mounting sensors on utility poles and never got launched until about six weeks ago.
Hellwig said Monday officials were still "bringng all things together," referring to ShotSpotter plus a closed circuit television system. A former shooting range in the basement of police headquarters was being converted to use as a monitoring station when workers uncovered "new space," which will require changes to the remodeling plans.
Meanwhile, Hellwig noted one ShotSpotter response that resulted in a police chase and confiscation of a gun. He also talked about a robbery/homicide at East Front Street and Roosevelt Avenue that was captured on video, saying if ShotSpotter had been in place, police might have been better able to identify the assailant's car.
Although police are working on bringing all things together - ShotSpotter, officers on the road and CCTV - he said he was "not happy with ShotSpotter to date." He said seven more devices were installed after he spent some evening hours with ShotSpotter representatives in the problematic areas. But Hellwig called the system "valuable" and "worthwhile"and told the council, "We just have to give a little bit of time to work the kinks out."
"I agonize at times over the crime within the the city," he said, but assured the council that he and the police were "doing everything."
Hellwig added an anecdote about a officer who, "at his own risk," took a loaded .357 Magnum gun out of a stopped car. The weapon proved to be the one used in the Front Street homicide, he said.
Apparently stung by criticism and doubt over the ShotSpotter program, Hellwig said, "I'm not hiding anything. I wouldn't do anything unscrupulous."
In council comments, Councilman William Reid asked about adding cameras to the acoustic sensors, but Hellwig said the council held the final decision on that. Reid had raised many objections to the program and Hellwig tossed back one of Reid's cracks that the city had "50,000 shot spotters" in its citizens, who could call police and report gunshots.
'There was one shooting no one called in, and ShotSpotter got it," Hellwig said.
Council President Adrian Mapp asked when the "clock began" on the ShotSpotter lease and Hellwig said it was July 1.
"Can you verify that for us?" Mapp asked.
In his remarks, Hellwig had a couple of lapses, calling the homicide location "Front and Richmond" and stating the number of shooting incidents first as 11, then as nine. Mapp said he was"not comfortable" with ShotSpotter getting four of nine, "as opposed to seven of nine," adding, "but it is still a bit early."
--Bernice
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None of this need to have happen. I posted this out-line of a project plan back on 09/26/2010:
ReplyDelete'Now I have one quibble with the administration and the council and that is that the devil is in the details. I have been in technology for over 40 years and have seen many systems go down the tubes and it happens for several reasons:
The vendor over promises and under-delivers.
The people making the decision don't have the technical expertise.
The vendor provides only anecdotal evidence and no verifiable hard scientific facts to verify the performance claims of their solution.
Positive references provided by the vendor were paid for.
Lack of customer expertise to administer the system after the vendor leaves.
Lack of buy-in from the people using the system, even if they have the expertise.
Lack of buy-in from the stakeholders. In this case the community that is to be the supposed beneficiary of the solution..
Lack of written and monitoring of performance guarantees from the people charted with administering the system. Example, can you guarantee the arrival of a Police car within 3 minutes of the shots being fired?
Now even if you get all of these things done, it just gets you to the point of having a functional system.
The next phase should be a go/no-go pilot to verify that the solution can actually meet the promised deliverables (in this case a reduction in crime the justifies the cost of the project). If it's a go, there should be a phased implementation. If it's a no-go, can adjustments be made to improve the pilot?
If yes, implement the improvements, restart the pilot and go through the cycle again. If no, close the project down and get your money back. Better still hold the monies in an escrow account and if no-go take your money out and close the account. If a go, pay them in stages with the final payment going to them six months after the successful completion of the project.'
Hellwig said, "I'm not hiding anything. I wouldn't do anything unscrupulous.
ReplyDeleteMassage?
This piece of junk should have been fine tuned before our stupid decision makers decided to spend taxpayer money on it. I am so sick of every two bit hustler seeing these idiots coming and selling them everything except the Brooklyn Bridge, of course I am sure they would buy it if offered.
ReplyDelete