Tuesday, July 21, 2015

ShotSpotter Renewed, Benefits Explained

A man's story of shooting in self-defense fell apart when ShotSpotter revealed a series of shots as he chased the victim. When two men from Brooklyn and one from South Carolina could only say shootings took place in a park, ShotSpotter pinpointed the location.

These were two examples Plainfield Police Sgt. Larry Brown gave the City Council Monday to describe the efficacy of the gunshot detection system the city has used since 2011. Brown said the system is "cloud-based," so information can be retrieved right in a patrol car. It affords responding officers a sense of what to look for when approaching a shooting. In the past, officers had to ask citizens what they saw or heard, and got conflicting or inaccurate responses.

The council approved a $120,000 contract renewal, from Feb. 1 through January 2016. The system can detect types of weapons as well as direction of shots. Brown told of a fatal shooting where two locations were detected, with a victim shot in one place with a handgun and at another site where, Brown said, the gunman "finished him off" with with a shotgun.Without ShotSpotpolice might not have found both crime scenes.

The system's audio detection feature can even pick up speech, he said. With ShotSpotter and newly installed surveillance cameras, police have advance knowledge on the way to an incident.

"The ShotSpotter does work," Brown concluded.

Plainfield had two recent shootings, on July 13 and 19. On Sunday a man, 27, was seriously injured when shot on East Second Street. On July 13, a man was shot on Liberty Street and the shooter, deemed armed and dangerous, is still at large.

The system was greeted with skepticism when first introduced in 2010 as a $1 million capitol expense. Public safety officials pitched it to the Planning Board, but members wanted more information. In May 2011, it resurfaced as a $165,000 lease plan, to be paid through a federal grant. More recently, the tab has been $120,000 per year.

At the June 13 agenda-fixing session, resident Alan Goldstein asked for statistics, saying over the years he hasn't seen any numbers.He repeated his request Monday, but the answer was anecdotal rather than statistical. The NJ State Police issue annual crime reports, but categories do not include shots fired.

--Bernice

5 comments:

  1. Sgt. Brown's presentation was certainly compelling without the stats. I assume there are logs kept by the police whenever the system is set off, and there should be some indication of the results of all investigations involving ShotSpotter. Also, I'd like to know the frequency shots are fired and the system is unable to pick them up.

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  2. Alan, sounds to me that you're asking the PPD to statistically prove to you that ShotSpotter doesn't work.

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    1. What is wrong about asking how much bang we have gotten for the buck ( Pardon the pun )? The other side of the coin is that the statistics could demonstrate that it is working perfectly and well worth the
      investment. Is the truth a problem? Bill Kruse

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    2. I don't think that. Why do you think that?

      One thing I've found with this city is it's not very forthcoming with information. You can't find out how many kids are signed up for recreation programs, and you can't find out the tonnage and cost of disposal at PMUA, or that portion attributable to common costs for servicing public areas. Even when you wring out of them 400 pages of documentation about the Watson-Yates demolition on North Ave., they leave out critical information.

      Sgt. Brown made a compelling case, as I said previously, but what is wrong with providing some numbers? Trust but don't verify is always the go-to mode.

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  3. I disagree with Alan. Too bad the council didn't. When no statistics or stories support Shotspotter's effectiveness in Plainfield, I am not compelled. Certainly the fact that an armed and dangerous shooter was not caught after firing a gun in the heart of Shotspotter territory on Liberty Street is no recommendation.

    Council has yet to come to grips with the reality that the Byron Halsey settlement will cost city taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars for years to come in direct payments and higher insurance premiums, and eliminating unproductive programs like Shotspotter are necessary to offset that extraordinary cost.

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