Yale Daily News

On Monday night, the Board of Alders’ Finance Committee decided to wait to authorize the city’s potential entrance into a four-year contract with Shotspotter, a controversial gunfire detection software.

In an effort to reduce gun violence in the city, Mayor Justin Elicker introduced a surveillance plan in September allocating $1.2 million in funds from the American Rescue Plan to the expansion of Shotspotter. Elicker’s initiative included the placement of 500 surveillance cameras around the city and innovations in New Haven Police Department management systems. The new budget for Shotspotter implementation totaled approximately $1.68 million over the course of the four-year contract, more than the federal ARP funds set for the plan earlier. Although Shotspotter technology has been introduced into hundreds of cities, it has received considerable scrutiny from activists and media outlets. The proposed expansion contract would begin in March 2022 and expire in February 2026.

Acting Chief of Police Renee Dominguez presented a Powerpoint detailing the proposed contract, including an explanation for the NHPD’s support for the program, a planned map of coverage and a breakdown of the contract’s timeline and pricing. Dominguez described several instances in which Shotspotter helped the NHPD provide evidence for arrest warrants of gun violence not reported to the police.

“In August of 2021…the Shotspotter alert led to the arrest of four people for criminal attempted [assault],” Dominguez said. “This incident was not called in, and we would not have made the arrests in this incident if it had not been for the Shotspotter activation.”

Dominguez also indicated that the NHPD has regularly collaborated with Shotspotter experts, who have helped analyze reports and provided testimony to detectives and courts.

New Haven became the first city in the state to utilize Shotspotter in 2009, and according to Dominguez, the proposal will mark the city’s third expansion of the software. If approved, the new contract would designate 7.06 square miles for Shotspotter coverage, a growth from the current 5.5 square miles covered by the program. 

Officers are able to find bullet shell casings through Shotspotter notifications on their phones, Dominguez explained to the board. She added that investigators have been able to link shell casings discovered via Shotspotter to gunshots fired in other cities.

In response to concerns from Ward 3 Alder Ron Hurt regarding the plan’s financial sustainability, Dominguez said that there is room in the NHPD budget to cover the extra funding required beyond what was already allocated in Elicker’s ARP distribution plan. She added that the department will “plan appropriately” to provide funding for Shotspotter after the four-year period expires. 

“We started this process prior to the American Rescue Plan to finish negotiating the actual agreement, and basically the vendor has been working with us to hold the pricing so that way we can execute this four-year contract,” Acting City Controller Michael Gormany said.

Ward 23 Alder and Board of Alders President Tyisha Walker-Myers and Ward 10 Alder Anna Festa asked Dominguez about the accuracy of Shotspotter, with Walker-Myers noting that “like any other program, nothing is 100 percent.” Dominguez said that, although 17 percent of Shotspotter reports in 2021 were false positives, the software leaves few incidents of gunfire unreported. 

“We had 698 Shotspotter hits, and we had to call Shotspotter back 12 times… what we can say is that we had 136 individuals — either homicides or non-fatal shootings — of those 136 individuals, we called Shotspotter 12 times because Shotspotter did not come in,” she said. “And that’s a 1.71 percentage rate of Shotspotter not indicating that there’s a shooting.” 

Ron Teachman, director of public safety solutions at Shotspotter, gave the committee a detailed explanation of the technology and operation mechanisms of Shotspotter. He drew attention from New Haven’s 17 percent false positive rate by claiming that the national false positive rate is “closer to 0.5 percent.” Shotspotter has faced criticism in the past for this accuracy claim, with studies in other cities showing that many alerts led to no evidence of gunshots.

Teachman detailed the detection of gunshots and engagement of sensors placed around the area range for detection. He mentioned that the company’s computer algorithm dismisses most “extraneous noises” like fireworks, and that there is an incident review center set to analyze detections before the police is dispatched.

“We build a robust network, much like your cell phone provider has done with cell towers and mini cells, placing them out on fields and on top of rooftops,” Teachman said. “We’re responsible for the build-out, for the infrastructure and the maintenance of all the hardware and the software. New Haven PD subscribes to a service.”

Ultimately, Alders decided to take more time to come to a decision over the funding plan. Although the Shotspotter implementation plan was already approved by the full Board of Alders, committee chair and Ward 25 Alder Adam Marchand wanted to set aside additional time to discuss the financial impacts of the plan.

“Getting some more information about how this works, so that we can make a judgment about the value of the investment, because we’ve already decided to invest some federal dollars in this,” Marchand said. “But we’re going to be voting on whether or not to enter into a contract that requires additional expenditures beyond that allocation, certainly in the future.”

Shotspotter has operated throughout the country for 25 years.