Little Rock board OKs buying system to pinpoint gunfire location across 2-square-mile area of city

The Little Rock Board of Directors last week unanimously approved a contract for the installation of a gunshot detection system that police say will help the department better investigate gun violence.

Funded by a federal grant, the $290,000, two-year agreement with the gunshot detection system ShotSpotter will cover a 2-square-mile area of the city that can be expanded if the Police Department chooses to keep it, Chief Kenton Buckner said at the Board of Directors meeting.

Little Rock was one of five cities from across the country selected to receive the 2017 Technology Innovation for Public Safety grant from the U.S. Department of Justice that funds the project, the Police Department said.

Approximately 15 to 20 acoustic devices will be installed per square mile, according to Capt. Ty Tyrell of the Little Rock Police Department. Tyrell said the small, discreet devices will be attached to residential buildings as well as taller, commercial ones and light poles. Exactly what they look like is not clear.

"I don't know, and I wouldn't tell you," Tyrell said. "We don't want people to know and be able to avoid shooting near one."

The department won't release the exact locations of each sensor, but Tyrell said the trial coverage area will be somewhere south of Interstate 630 and east of University Avenue. He did not give a timeline for when installation would begin.

Tyrell noted that the contract with ShotSpotter means the company is responsible for maintenance in the event that any of the sensors is shot or damaged in a storm, adding that police cameras in the same neighborhoods have not been damaged.

"Honestly, we're not worried," he said.

When a shot is fired within range of one of the acoustic devices, the system alerts police immediately with a time stamp of when the shot was fired and a dot on the map corresponding to its exact location.

Instead of responding to the broader area of a city block or an intersection, Tyrell said, police can go straight to the backyard of a specific address, for instance.

That automates the process and saves time, he said, giving police a better chance of locating people involved in a shooting before they leave the scene. It also makes shell casings easier to find.

Only about 20 percent of gunshots are reported to police, according to Tyrell. Sometimes people aren't aware that the outside of their own home was struck by a bullet.

"People get used to it after a period of time," he said.

With ShotSpotter, police can investigate gun violence without requiring participation from people who live in those areas, Tyrell said. But he said it won't replace knocking on doors and working to maintain a relationship with the community.

"I think we start building trust when we start being successful," he said.

At Tuesday's meeting, Buckner said he reached out to friends and former mentors at other police departments that used the system. They gave positive reviews, he said.

"If it was crap, they would tell me," he said.

One of those departments is Louisville, Ky., where Buckner served before being hired in Little Rock. The system there went live on June 1, 2017, according to Lt. Jim Cirillo of the Louisville Metro Police Department. There, it covers 6 square miles in an area chosen based on historical data on homicides, aggravated assaults, robberies and shots-fired calls, Cirillo said.

The system notifies police between 30 and 60 seconds after shots are fired, he said. On average, that has happened a little more than two minutes before police receive the first call in incidents that are reported, according to Cirillo, citing data recorded between June 1, 2017, and May 23. Only 16 percent of shots fired were reported to police, the department found.

Cirillo said the department looks at the concentration of activations of the system to help commanders decide where to deploy their resources. ShotSpotter does not specify whether the shots hit people or property, though according to a video on the company's website it does provide contextual information, such as if there is an active shooter alert in the area. The Louisville Metro Police Department responds to every activation in order to determine if anything or anyone was hit and if any evidence was left behind.

ShotSpotter is used in more than 85 cities, according to the company.

Russ Racop, who operates a blog critical of Little Rock, criticized the decision at the Board of Directors meeting, naming two other cities that have used the system but no longer do, including Charlotte, N.C. Buckner noted that Charlotte installed the system specifically for the Democratic National Convention in 2012 and chose not to renew the contract afterward.

Tyrell said if the city decides to keep ShotSpotter after the trial period, it will cover about 120 to 140 square miles in areas with a history of violence -- covering all of Little Rock would be more than the city can afford. In that case, the cost is about $165,000 annually with a 5 percent cost-of-living increase each year, Buckner said.

Metro on 06/11/2018

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