ATLANTA — Atlanta Police will test technology that detects, analyzes, and reports gunfire as it happens. However, Atlanta has been down this road before – and rejected it.
The technology, called "ShotSpotter" is used in 117 other cities, according to its web site.
Georgia’s coastal city of Savannah has used ShotSpotter for six years and plans to expand it. Denver has also used it six years. St. Louis has used it for 13 years.
ShotSpotter is privately-developed technology that detects the sound and location of gunshots in neighborhoods -- and can direct police to the gunfire before a 911 call is sent.
In Chicago, city officials embrace ShotSpotter, but some others in the Windy City don’t. ShotSpotter first detected gunfire that sent police to a Chicago neighborhood on March 29. 911 calls followed – resulting in this foot chase and an officer shooting and killing a 13-year-old, Adam Toledo.
This month, critics of ShotSpotter filed a court brief, saying 90 percent of Chicago’s ShotSpotter alerts resulted in officers finding no shots fired or any gun crime.
Shot Spotter “inflates statistics about supposed gunfire in [Black and Latino] communities, creating a faulty, tech-based justification for ever more aggressive policing,” according to the brief filed by the McArthur Justice Center at Northwestern University.
But backers said the program upgrades the intel police get as they are answering dangerous calls involving gunfire.
"If we hear that it’s a high powered rifle or multiple weapons being fired, we make sure our officers are aware. We do not want them responding to a call blindly," St. Louis Metropolitan police Sgt. Ann Long told KSDK-TV in 2017.
In 2018, Atlanta tested ShotSpotter but quietly decided against purchasing the system. “Since that time, ShotSpotter has made some enhancements to their product and is offering a no-cost pilot,” an APD spokesman wrote in an email.
Atlanta’s crime problem has also risen since that time. In 2017, Atlanta reported 79 homicides. In 2020, the number nearly doubled to 157.