A look inside DeSoto's $300K investment into gunshot detection technology. Is it paying off?
DESOTO (CBSNewsTexas.com) - On May 30, a 14-year-old boy was shot in broad daylight outside of a DeSoto apartment complex. First responders were able to get to the scene, render first aid and get the victim in an ambulance and to the hospital. He survived and police later made an arrest.
DeSoto Assistant Police Chief Ryan Jesionek said the quick response was initiated by gunshot detection technology. He called this scenario the textbook example of how ShotSpotter is helping in their fight against gun violence.
Less than a month before this shooting, on April 20, the city's ShotSpotter system went live. It currently covers a two square mile area on the DeSoto's northeast side, about 10% of the city. To determine what area the system should target, DeSoto police looked at calls over the last five years to pinpoint where they believed there was a need.
Here's how the technology works in practice: when ShotSpotter microphones pick up a loud noise, they can pinpoint where it occurred within an 82 foot radius. Once the system detects the sound, a remote staff member analyzes the audio to confirm that it was gunfire. An officer is then dispatched.
"Our officers can come up with a plan of approach, knowing that this is most likely gunfire and this is not something else," Jesionek said.
This whole process is supposed to take place in less than a minute.
Why DeSoto chose ShotSpotter
Jesionek said in 2020, police in DeSoto were on high alert.
Crime numbers from the DeSoto Police Department show there were 68 aggravated assaults in 2020, up from 47 in 2019 and 23 in 2018. There was also one murder.
"We had a few instances inside of a month that year, all involving gun violence, that really kind of shook the community," he said.
In response, DeSoto decided to invest in gunshot detection technology.
A three year contract cost the city $300,000 and was paid for with money from the American Rescue Plan Act -- a legislative package created to help cities recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. President Joe Biden urged state and local leaders to spend some of those resources on making communities safer.
A representative from SoundThinking, ShotSpotter's parent company, told CBS News Texas the federal government has been very supportive about using technology to address violent crime.
"Increasingly the tools of crime gun intelligence, things like ShotSpotter, but also ATF's NIBIN system, ballistic imaging and other things, are revolutionizing the way police investigate gun crimes," said Tom Chittum, Vice President of Analytics and Forensic Services.
Gunshot detection technology proponents believe it helps officers respond to shooting calls quicker and with more accuracy.
"We're all used to to responding to shots fired calls and looking for fired cartridge casings, that's nothing new," Jesionek said. "I used to drive up and down streets and just look for something shining in the spotlight."
But the technology can give a more precise location for an incident than a human caller can, if they call at all. There are several reasons a person may be hesitant to pick up the phone when they hear gunfire, such as fear of retaliation or confusion about what they heard.
"Some folks have a general distrust of the police department," Jesionek said. "Or maybe they've called us on a shots fired complaint before and they didn't see us out there, so they think we didn't come. And their thought may be at that point, what's the use?"
Who else is using ShotSpotter?
We reached out to 33 North Texas police departments and DeSoto is currently the only city using ShotSpotter or any similar system.
But the Arlington and Lancaster police departments did tell us they're looking into it. And Fort Worth is in the trial phase with another gunshot detection system to be used in conjunction with smart streetlights.
Zooming out statewide, Harris County and the Houston Police Department also use ShotSpotter.
ShotSpotter's effectiveness in question
A recent Houston Chronicle report shows the technology hasn't made a dent in gun violence in the city, and it distracts Houston police officers from other calls for help.
In response to the report, Chittum told us the technology is effective at what it does, but it also requires an investigation on the part of the police department.
"We can tell police the what, the when, the where of gunfire, but not the who," he said. "ShotSpotter is one tool in the toolbox, but it has to be used with a lot of other tools."
It's not just Houston, ShotSpotter's effectiveness has been questioned in other cities.
The San Antonio Police Department ended its contract with ShotSpotter after a little more than a year, saying the technology only led to four arrests.
And the City of Chicago is facing a lawsuit alleging unfounded alerts lead to illegal stops and false charges.
The lawsuit claims police misused "unreliable" technology from ShotSpotter as critical evidence in charging Michael Williams with murder. The man in question spent a year in jail before a judge dismissed the case at the request of prosecutors.
In response to the lawsuit, ShotSpotter released a statement to CBS News Texas saying, in part:
"Authorities decide whether to arrest and prosecute someone and ShotSpotter is not involved in those decisions. ShotSpotter identifies and alerts on gunfire incidents, not people. ShotSpotter was not aware until months after Mr. Williams had been arrested and did not know the prosecutor's theory of the case was that Mr. Williams shot Mr. Herring inside a car. Once ShotSpotter learned of the prosecutor's theory, the company reminded the prosecutor that ShotSpotter's evidence is only guaranteed to locate shots fired outdoors, not inside a car or building, and would not support the prosecutor's theory of the case. It was then that the prosecution dismissed the case against Mr. Williams."
Researchers who have looked into the efficacy of the technology say police departments can't rely on ShotSpotter alone.
A Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions study looked at 16 years of ShotSpotter data:
"What we found in our study is that the implementation of ShotSpotter did not show any significant declines or increases in firearm violence, specifically firearm homicides," said Mitch Doucette, who led the study.
Researchers also found that if there aren't new laws, policy reforms and intervention efforts to go along with high-tech detection systems, gun violence will remain a problem.
"When you think of the right tool for the right job, that may give some insight into how we can go about addressing firearm violence," Doucette said. "It may be that the tool, something like shot detection technology, isn't as effective as we think."
Chittum believes many of the critics are taking too narrow a view of the application of the tool, and that data on things like immediate arrests don't tell the whole story.
"Many of them forget to even consider how many gunshot wound victims received aid quickly that would not have," he said. "And I guess the question I ask is what's the dollar value you would put on those lives."
Future of ShotSpotter in DeSoto
For Jesionek, ShotSpotter technology is the anchor of whatever else comes next in the fight against gun crimes. He said he'll be looking at the data to gauge the success of the city's contract.
"How many times can we actually intervene and render aid to a victim, or locate a victim, how many arrests, how many gun seizures do we get out of contacts that we're able to make using ShotSpotter," he said. "Even finding cartridge casings at ShotSpotter notification locations. I'll be counting those over the next three years."
He also called the technology another tool in the department's toolbox:
"I actually think this technology fits perfectly with an agency of our size ... We can assure that our officers get here quickly and are able to make a difference and that this isn't just another call on a full status board."
