City leaders vote to expand ShotSpotter system to Carrick

It’s all about response when it comes to the ShotSpotter system.

“In the past, police officers would go knocking on the doors, we heard there was a gunshot over here, did you hear anything, the time it saves for police officers,” said Anthony Coghill who’s a City Council member.

City Council just approved expanding the system into the Carrick neighborhood.

“We’ve had a rash of shootings, murders in Carrick. I was reluctant to incorporate it into the neighborhood because I felt we could be safe without it. It’s a technology I wish we didn’t need to have,” Coghill said.

Nine years after the launch in Homewood, there are still critics of the program as some major cities like Chicago are considering abandoning it altogether.

“It’s just a tool for us to get to a location much quicker with much more accuracy than we had in the past. That’s the challenge other cities face, those who aren’t using it anymore. Did they use it accurately in that were they using it for investigation or for response,” said Pittsburgh Police Chief Larry Scirotto.

Diving into the data, around 92% of the ShotSpotter calls were accurately detecting gunfire and it’s a program the police chief is happy to see grow.

“I believe it saves lives. I believe it brings attention to gunfire far before communities bring it to our attention and the data supports that. Less than 10% of our shots fired calls come from a citizen so we are relying on this technology to get aid to people much quicker,” Scirotto said.

The company that runs the program doesn’t share the exact locations of the ShotSpotters, but they do cover about a third of the city. The Carrick technology should be up and running by the end of the summer.

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