The New York Police Department has launched the ShotSpotter, a high-tech system that will help the NYPD determine where gun shots are fired even if no calls to 911 are made.
The technology functions similarly to a GPS triangulation system, utilizing coordinates and sensors for the identification of both the direction and location of gunfire.
There are currently 300 sensors installed across 17 precincts, 10 of which are in Brooklyn and 7 of which are in the Bronx. These are areas wherein there has been an increase in gun violence.
The Bronx system, which became operational after the strike of midnight on Monday, already picked up gunfire even though no 911 calls were received. The Brooklyn system, meanwhile, will become operational next week.
When gunfire is detected, the data collected by the ShotSpotter technology will be channeled into the Domain Awareness System of the NYPD, which is an internal landing page used by the department for law enforcement information. The Domain Awareness System features real-time information such as video feeds, 911 call transcripts, outstanding warrants, arrest records, and other such data.
The Joint Operation Center of the NYPD will then disseminate information regarding the location of the fired shots to the police officers on duty, who also have access to the cameras located in the area of the gunfire along with all information regarding recent violence cases there.
"The idea is to take all this information and queue it up for the officers," said Jessica Tisch, the Deputy Commissioner for Technology of the NYPD.
According to NYPD Commissioner William Bratton, a significant number of cases of gunfire are not reported. The ShotSpotter, which will be implemented on a pilot program lasting one year for the cost of around $1.5 million, should allow officers to make faster responses to scenes where shots were fired.
The ShotSpotter system is already being utilized in Newark, New Jersey; Nassau County, New York; and Washington.
"Thanks to the NYPD, New York City continues to be the safest big city in the world, and this technology will help us stay even safer," said New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio during a press conference.
According to Tisch, the NYPD had already tried to implement a similar technology in 2011 for the tracing of fired shots, but the previous system failed because it was not able to distinguish the sound of gunfire from other sounds that can be heard in the surroundings. The ShotSpotter system addresses the issue by first sending possible cases of gunshots to a trained technician, who will determine if the sound is indeed made by a fired gun within 30 seconds.
