Chicago and Mobile, Alabama, are cutting ties with ShotSpotter, the controversial gunshot detection company — but the sensors that alert police to shootings likely won’t go away, according to a new report Wired And South Side Weekly.
Internal ShotSpotter emails reviewed by Wired And South Side Weekly reveal that the company has not removed its sensors from other cities that have terminated their contracts, including San Diego, California and San Antonio, Texas. According to the report, ShotSpotter does not sell its sensors, but rather the software that alerts police that a shooting may have occurred. After a city’s contract with ShotSpotter expires, the sensors occasionally remain installed. In some cases, police continue to rely on ShotSpotter’s technology even after cities have ended their contracts with the company.
According to CNN, ShotSpotter deploys 15 to 20 sensors per square mile. Sensors commonly found on light poles include a microphone, GPS system, and memory processing.
An email sent to ShotSpotter employee John Fountain in October 2023 suggests that the company’s technology will remain active even after contracts expire. In the email, an unknown sender suggested addressing a sensor shortage in a city with an existing contract by transferring sensors from an inactive market. “The last time we tried to remove sensors from an old coverage area, I think Clark freaked out since we are still working with the police using these sensors (which I didn’t know),” the sender wrote, referring refers to Clark Dunson, the director of systems engineering at SoundThinking. (ShotSpotter changed its name to SoundThinking in 2023.) SoundThinking did not immediately respond The edgePlease comment.
Another email sent to Fountain in December 2022 said there were “a few hundred sensors left installed” in San Diego and that the sensors themselves were “active even if the market is not.” In an internal email sent eight months later, Dunson said that a ShotSpotter technical support engineer worked with the San Diego and San Antonio police departments, “issuing test alerts and tracking down discoveries for them.” San Antonio’s ShotSpotter contract expired in 2017; San Diego terminated his contract in 2021.
The emails raise the question of whether the end of the ShotSpotter contract in Chicago will actually change much. Although Chicago’s contract expired on February 16, the city will not decommission the sensors until September 22. Earlier this week, one of the more than 2,500 ShotSpotter sensors scattered across the city alerted Chicago police to the fatal shooting of an officer, CBS News reported.