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Chicago Debates Merits of ShotSpotter Technology
theodp writes "After a week that saw more than 40 people shot and at least 4 killed, Chicago politicians and police are at odds on whether to implement ShotSpotter, a camera and acoustic sensor-based gunshot-location system that is designed to pinpoint a shooter's location within seconds. The Chicago Police Department opposes such a move, saying ShotSpotter wasn't reliable in an earlier trial and — at $250,000 for a square mile of coverage — is too expensive. The company says the system has dramatically lowered crime rates in cities across the country. ShotSpotter is currently deployed in two countries and 51 US cities and counties."
Well, if the Chicago police are saying "we tried it and it doesn't work", I'd listen to them rather than the company.
Illinois is one of the few areas of the country that do not issue firearms licenses. Let the law abiding citizens carry guns like the constitution allows them to do and you'll see gun crime drop dramatically. Just look at the statistics of the rest of the country who freely let their citizens carry.
Or we could have reasonable gun control laws. Cue the nutcases who think they're going to 1) have a reason to fight the US Army and 2) think they could possibly beat them.
Thanks NRA! Not only are you keeping our murder rate high, but you're also helping to kill Mexicans too.
Real ShotSpotter reduces crime by X amount. Plastic ShotSpotter is probably about X(.80).
...and with it shall go the supposed evidence. The paltry statistic of 244 gunshots in a two month period vs. 177 in another does not indicate anything about supposed trends in gun crime. Furthermore, yearly gun crime is what is of importance, not a few weeks.
Anything that increases compound bow or crossbow homicides can't be bad.
I don't think they should have cameras, but the technology is sound- and it certainly is better use of tax money than where most money is going (all sorts of anti-terrorism crap.) The question: why is such a simple technology so hideously expensive? There should be little patentable in the field, given how old and obvious sonic triangulation is. The equipment is super simple- an embedded computer in an outdoor enclosure with a microphone...
Please help metamoderate.
Charge $300,000 per sq mile and kick $50k back to the police department for 'overtime related to training and special classes.' Don't monitor if the classes are performed or even necessary. Don't check if the system is used after implementation.
The police get funding - they win. The company gets cash - they win. The politicians get to look like they're doing something using cutting edge technology against crime which they can feature in their next election - they win.
It's the perfect solution! No one who matters (in the mind of our leaders) gets hurt.
It works great, or so I'm told. They're able to get cops to where the shooter fired within minutes- and in plenty of time to round up witnesses who swear they "saw nuttin".
There's been at least one drive by in my 'work' neighborhood, and about a dozen+ deaths within a mile. Two bullets in our building. One in the front door within 5 minutes of me entering it (now THAT will freak you out- come into work, forget something, go back to the car and the door has been shot).
Last time I heard of this technology, it worked great in open areas. But if it was deployed in a place with many hard surfaces, like the average city, it became confused by all the echoes and didn't do so well.
Bats don't have any problem with cave interiors, so it would seem locating gunshots despite the hard surfaces should be possible, maybe even easier with all the echoes. Maybe they've solved this by now?
There any independent lab or testing organization that can say? Or any other organization that's tried it and can report on their experiences? The military is very interested in this, and are the ones that paid for the much of the early work. I'm supposing the military's opinion would count highly with the police.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
40 people shot and at least 4 killed in a week??? That are insane for a city with only 2.8 million people. Is Chicago the hell hole of all crime in USA?
Well, if the Chicago police are saying "we tried it and it doesn't work", I'd listen to them rather than the company.
Police aren't unbiased either. If a tool (or effective policing) pushes crime out of an area, you don't need as many police officers in that area, do you? And if it works in one part of the city, it'll probably work in others. That means layoffs. Let me know when you hit that stage of your life where you realize that the police have little incentive to effectively enforce the law.
Sorta similar to firefighters. Fire calls have dropped in the last 20-30 years to 1/4 of what they used to be; more sprinkler systems, better building and electrical codes, etc. We just don't need nearly as many firefighters these days. So rather than lay off firefighters (or reassign them to work in small rescue crews, or in ambulances as rescue techs) the city of Boston now sends out in many cases TWO fire trucks to any medical or vehicle crash call, putting unnecessary miles on expensive heavy equipment and running up fuel bills.
But, they get to look busy...
Please help metamoderate.
Another hugely expensive technology to not look into the real problem of firearms ubiquity in US ?
Anybody thinking about limiting the availability of firearms rather than attempting to pinpoint shooters ?
Appart from that I can't start to imagine how such a prop could ever cost 250K per square mile. I'm pretty sure 2/3 microphones per block + a cleverly hacked strongarm could achieve the same goal.
Let's see... $250 grand per square mile. What's it cost to obtain a silencer from the friendly neighborhood gun dealer?
After a dozen or so people get caught with this technology, I give it about a year before all the gangs in chicago start using silencers as standard equipment.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
How long are these expected to last? If it is only like 10 years.... It would be cheaper to hire 'listeners' at minimum wage and spread them across the city. And that money gets better distributed and helps employ people. Give em a walkie talkie or a cellphone w/ a camera.
TBH though I can't imagine how it could possibly cost so much. For that price you could say.... Create a city wide wifi system and stick a microphone on the top of every third telephone pole in the city. Which would be more accurate. The microphones don't need to be good at all. And really there are far cheaper things than this I just figured having city wide wifi would make it not totally worthless.
BTW this audio system would cost 150M to do chicago's city center (600km^2). CCTV setup for london costs 200M (over 10years), they obviously get quite a bit more and london is a lot bigger(1700km^2).
More than twice the cost of cctv for audio only for a system that hasn't proved its self? Fuuuuuck that.
They had this in Deus Ex hong hong, as a mechanism to prevent you from doing any shooting on that level
Most of this activity is taking place in one ethnic neighborhood next to another ethnic neighborhood so most of the victims are going to the 2 or 3 closest hospitals.
... just get quieter in response.
I imagine the first shots that ShotSpotter would pinpoint are the ones shooting them straight into oblivion. If you were a gun-wielding thug who knew these things were around, wouldn't you do your worst to get rid of them ASAP?
Reasonable expectation of privacy is the legal test, I think. The courts have ruled that in public, there is none. Chicago is the most over-surveilled city I could imagine. For probably fire or six years, there have been a huge number of CCTV cameras, mostly at intersections. In iffy neighborhoods, they are even in the middle of the block. They have large microwave link antennas, and can have a clear line of sight in four directions. If you look around a a square mile or so of hte city, you will see that they are all pointed at the closest precinct police station. They have ligt bars fomn police motorcycles on top of the (bulky) radio unit. A friend lives in a second floor apartment, and they put one of these outside his window.There are more cameras in lower-class neighborhoods, but they are everywhere. (Chicago is a patchwork of about 200 culturally and economically distinct neighborhoods). Mayor Daley several years ago mandated that any business open after midnight has to have cameras. Now the police department wants to use fresher technology to put covert cameras everywhere.
The cameras are clearly meant to intimidate. Daley is a man who's authority is not to be trifled with, and I cannot help but think that the embarrassment his father suffered from the 1968 police riot produced a "never again" mentality around dissent. Chicago has a long history of identifying and suppressing potential or perceived dissent. The infamous "red squads" ferreted out thought crimes until the feds ended the Chicago Police Department's Subversive Activities Unit in 1985.
Some things never change.
The cameras are clearly meant to intimidate. Daley is a man who's autority is not to be trifled with, and I cannot help but think that the embarressment his father suuered from the 1968 police riot has produced a :never again" mentality in his thinking. Chicago has a history of identifying and supressing dissent. The infamous "red squads" ferreted out thought crimes until the feds ended the Chicago Police Department's Subversive Activities Unit in 1985.
Some things never change.
East Palo Alto was the first city to have complete coverage. They say it has helped reduce shootings. It is also helping to resolve a mystery regarding a plane crash - http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/19/audio-of-tesla-plane-crash-may-help-in-determining-cause/ . I knew the pilot, who was extraordinarily careful about flying his plane and had flown out of Palo Alto airport hundreds of times. We suspect he lost his left engine during takeoff and was pulled left into the power lines (normal procedure is to veer right towards the bay). These audio recordings might determine what happened.
I read an article yesterday about 6 people being shot in the same location in two separate incidents. The second time the shooters came by, the ambulances and fire trucks had just left, it was the police and some bystanders at the scene. No police returned fire even though being fired on.
Id believe the 40 people shot in a week thing.
Im a troll because I disagree with you.
I had no idea believing in reasonable gun control laws and backing that up with statistics was called trolling. Thanks for reminding me to get back to wrapping things up, and getting the hell out of here.
You've got the right to buy a gun without a permit and watch people get murdered on television and your choice of chain fast food restaurants, but you can't see a nipple or have a reasonable discussion on the merits of socialized services or have any time off from work without the fear of getting fired.
And you think you're fucking winners. Way to go.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
The link goes to a newspaper article about the expansion of the existing SF shotspotter system and the justification for doing so. Nothing is mentioned about shotspotter's impact outside of SF, let alone nationwide.
Fifth Ward Ald. Leslie Hairston wants Chicago to reintroduce the Shotspotter gunshot location technology. After all, Shotspotter's web site says it can reduce crime. So why isn't the CPD using it? Don't they care?
The CPD did adopt Shotspotter and found mixed results in Chicago. Specifically:
The city is going forward with installing the technology in the Loop. However, Shotspotter is an expensive technology and the CPD decided it wasn't the best use of their scare resources. The city of Chicago is approximately 227 square miles, so to cover the entire city would cost close to $50 million.
The Shotspotter technology locates gunshots. In a dense city, 911 calls often serve the same function. Gunshot location is a useful piece of information for police officers, but it is not a silver bullet. It cannot by itself reduce crime. If the system is reliable and works well with officers, it could lead to less shootings (but not necessarily less crime). The independent studies I have seen show the results are quite mixed.
In Chicago, there has been a rash of shootings in Chicago were no regard for the police or cameras. Shotspotter is now the silver bullet. I am concerned that Shotspotter is seen as the answer because people are scared. It doesn't make sense to spend money on technology that makes us feel better, but is ineffective. The city can address this by making public its tests of Shotspotter. I would like more details about the tests, for example: How many gunshots were there during the tests? How accurate was the system?
Link
Ayn Rand: "Money is the barometer of a society’s virtue."
L. Ron Hubbard: "Writing for a penny a word is ridiculous. If a man really wanted to make a million dollars, the best way to do it would be start his own religion."
Steve Jobs: "I was worth about over a million dollars when I was twenty-three and over ten million dollars when I was twenty-four, and over a hundred million dollars when I was twenty-five and it wasn't that important because I never did it for the money."
It is indeed. And all the cop bashing is 1000% true when it comes to the CPD. You'll never meet a larger force of fat ignorant armed thugs masquerading as "law enforcement" Implement ^ up there was right. Throw some money make some speeches and go back to doing absolutely nothing. Good thing there is a handgun ban in Chicago right? No guns there.
The cops are against it because their vigilante death squads will be revealed.
Sure the company like to quote reduced gunshot detections, but the fact is that the murder and crime rates were unchanged. So either the system because less able to detect the shots or less shots were actually fired in the covered region. Maybe the criminals switched to smaller fireams, suppressors, or knives. Or maybe the gun range on the south side of town shutdown.
Besides, responding to a gunshot several minutes later is pointless once the criminals figure out not to stick around. I'm sure they know where the cameras are as well. Personally, putting up cameras (working or fake) is probably a better crime deterrent.
No.
But don't worry, thanks to clever manipulation of statistics, crime is going down. Don't mind the bullet holes.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
All those cameras around the city are active cameras filming footage 24/7,
ShotSpotter is a passive technology only activated when the sensor picks up a gunshot.
Those active cameras are mostly as deterrent against crime; making criminals uncomfortable doing their behavior on camera. If these would be real candid camera's, crime could drop although privacy concerns will rise. I guess there is no real solution for this; since the entire mess around surveillance is in the wrong hands to create confidence with the general public.
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
Is it sort of civil war? Ethnic or race conflict? Why do not I find a gun somewhere and start shooting?
These therms are confusing: "shooting", "violence", "crime", etc. Can anyone explain in plain English words what is going on in Chicago. And why?
I don't buy the "PUBLIC" crap.
If I go out, in public, I don't need a cluster of cams, recording every movement through a city for 24/7.
Does that make me a murderer or a criminal? Not even the slightest.
Privacy is a lot more than having in-house secrets. It defines who one can be and evolve. Being watched 24/7 surely changes that entire area of evolution.
When a television crew is filming in the city, I mostly go out of the way; because I can.
Are you also going to pull the "public" excuse, when I am maintaining my own privacy that moment?
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
Those active cameras are mostly as deterrent against crime;
That really hasn't been proven, and the dispute has been posted here on slashdot at least a few times.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=3360287&page=2
They only appear to be helpful after the fact, and only if they're pointed in the correct direction when the crime occurred. (same article)
I could drag up more, but google is your friend.
since the entire mess around surveillance is in the wrong hands to create confidence with the general public.
That's because the right hands do not exist.
It's a flippant reply, but you know it's right.
--
BMO
Anyone who is somewhat important in a gang would be wise to get all the kids in the neighborhood to damage the acoustic sensors. If this was impossible, another smart move would be to start shooting A LOT. Not at anything in particular-- just grab a pistol, put it in a bag, and fire. Get out of the area quickly (ditch the gun if necessary) and waste police resources tremendously. I'm betting that after thousands of rounds being pumped into the ground the police will stop responding.
'Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.' - Mao Tse-tung
These type of systems were originally developed to detect & track aircraft in the days before radar came into play. Many countries had developed & equiped their military with such sound detection/tracking systems during the interwar years (ie the 20s' & 30's). They never really matched their assumed potential & often required too much talent & skill from the operators to be practical. At best they were an early warning system
More crap to buy now and mortgage off onto the next 30-50 years of taxpayers.
Who knows! Maybe Chicago won't be happy until taxes on everything in the city are at 50% plus whatever the Obama Administration decides to tack on for "free universal health care".
This about sums up my feelings. If you want to be truthful, double it.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Most firearm incidents are accidents &/or acts of compulsion/impulse.
Example:- Johnny & Jack come home from the pub pissed as farts & get in a argument & end up blueing. One ends up with the upper hand & the other comes off second best with the furniture, in anger he reaches for his gun & points/threatens his mate & then through drunkeness & carelessness, etc, the gun accidently fires & his mate gets blasted.
Such a scenario correlates with many more firearm incidents than pre-meditated acts by career criminals. Gun control laws & gun storage laws are there to minimise such scenarios. The only effect gun control & storage laws have on preventing firearm acts by career criminals or lifestyle criminals is by limiting the amount of firerms stolen & being diverted into the black market. Of course in regards the US it's too late, the place is so satuated with firearms already.
It's not the cost of the hardware. Just ask any electrical contractor. The actual parts installed are typically 10-20% the cost of the job. Securing the property rights to install these, even if the mic's are atop utility poles or streetlights, may also be a factor. However, installing a separate branch circuit for power, running conduit, installing boxes to hold the gear, pulling cable and terminating it, and having it all done proper to code... that's what drives up the cost of any municipal or commercial electrical project. Blame the IBEW if you'd like, but there's prolly a generic commercial electrical contractor to do the actual install and a separate low-voltage contractor to finish and setup the microphone and configure the controller. Plus there's drawings to be done first (think AutoCAD), plus paperwork (submittals, as-built's, operation & maintenance manuals, permits, bonds....)... All that adds up and is counted as labor. Plus those contractors want some profit too, so there's markup. $250k per sq. mile is all mostly labor.
Sometimes I wish we could install stuff like homeowners.... nail it to the side of the house, plug in to the nearest outlet, drill a hole thru the wall to fish some cat5 or whatever, get a drink, and call it a day
Most firearm incidents are accidents &/or acts of compulsion/impulse.
Example:- Johnny & Jack come home from the pub pissed as farts & get in a argument & end up blueing. One ends up with the upper hand & the other comes off second best with the furniture, in anger he reaches for his gun & points/threatens his mate & then through drunkeness & carelessness, etc, the gun accidently fires & his mate gets blasted.
Such a scenario correlates with many more firearm incidents than pre-meditated acts by career criminals. Gun control laws & gun storage laws are there to minimise such scenarios. The only effect gun control & storage laws have on preventing firearm acts by career criminals or lifestyle criminals is by limiting the amount of firerms stolen & being diverted into the black market. Of course in regards the US it's too late, the place is so satuated with firearms already.
Thay're about minimising firearm incidents regardless of premeditation or who has a criminal past. A bloody good percentage of firearm incidents are accidents &/or acts of compulsion/impulse.
Example:- Johnny & Jack come home from the pub pissed as farts & get in a argument & end up blueing. One ends up with the upper hand & the other comes off second best with the furniture, in anger he reaches for his legally owned gun & points/threatens his mate & then through drunkeness & carelessness, etc, the gun accidently fires & his mate gets blasted.
Such a scenario correlates with many more firearm incidents than pre-meditated acts by career criminals. Gun control laws & gun storage laws are there to minimise such scenarios. The only effect gun control & storage laws have on preventing firearm acts by career criminals or lifestyle criminals is by limiting the amount of firerms stolen & being diverted into the black market (less legal access often means less illegal access, even if there's no statistical correlation). Of course in regards the US it's too late, the place is so saturated with firearms already.
Our community of 30,000 has had the shot spotter system for about a year. We have caught no one with it nor have we seen a decrease in gun crime.
One problem is false positives. Things like the slam of a dumpster lid and other routine noises detected as gunfire. System filters are constantly being updated in a continuous seesaw between sensitivity and selectivity. Should we settle in the middle ground I'm not at all assured the system will yield a positive value proposition.
Another problem problem is having people in position for rapid response. This requires additional bodies dedicated to a particular area. Even though Federal funds paid for most of our system, there is still a financial pinch adequately supporting the system.
If we cannot throw more bodies at the problem then we need augment the system with other technologies such as video surveillance. Again, there is a financial burden but hopefully we will get more funding.
One of the nice things about the shot spotter system is the ability to monitor and record conversations within closer proximity of the site monitors. In some cases we can get audio from within vehicles and buildings.
At the moment I'm inclined to reflect upon the shot spotter system as a developing technology that will become integral to future crime suppression efforts moving forward. In the meanwhile we are looking at substantial build outs to our video surveillance systems. Again depending on funding realizations.
It is perhaps noteworthy to reaffirm the Shot Spotter system is just one component of the entire signals intelligence theater. The end game will be accomplished with total population lock down which is within our grasp with adequate application and access to current and developing technologies upon refinement.
Currently, our greater successes have come from enabling our individual crime fighters with lower cost personal technology tools and inter-vehicle networking with multi-agency access.
Makes me wonder why we actually have those active camera's in town, recording 24/7/365...
Some people come up with the but it's public excuse; does that mean we just have to blindly accept? To go anywhere but home, we have to cross that public turf; no other choice. Why should law enforcement have all -that- on tape? If I wanted to keep such log of myself, I'd already have my own twitter-tool logging my locations by GPS.
Raises the question if such CCTV systems should exist in the first place, if there is no one right to control it.
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
crack babies
car crashes
infectious syringes left around (beach...)
impaired judgement leading to fights, rape, pregnancy...
economic drag on the nation
You missed most of the good ones! Many are really cool ways too kill people.
A modern crossbow can be pretty small. It's less than a foot wide, and about a foot long. It takes bolts that are half a foot long. Optional: add poison, such as ricin.
The attack dog is already popular in the UK. They are fast and deadly.
A blow gun can work. Poison is required.
The molotov cocktail is good, especially if you hit the sole escape route from a building (commonly an interior staircase) or lob it into a moving car.
The compound bow, as used for hunting, is a bit large but otherwise excellent. People with balls the size of watermelons use bows to hunt bears.
Get yourself something to relax because you need it.
Take anything for granted which your government serves you and feel as safe as you like, because it's all for the greater you and only you.
You obviously missed the entire point; because you are too hot headed stuck in your own topic; ...
Try to read and understand instead of insulting and trolling; since the real point has been flying way above your head
ps: I guess you are using these forums as your back yard, where your attitude is better than a question. First shoot then ask questions, right?
I'm done here...
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
Just noticed the alternate thread here .. really constructive!
I think it's time to upgrade to v2.0 .. Dave!
If you are trying to imitate Dave, you'll have to do better, atleast he had decent speech routines...
Ever heard of the term Netiquette? You might learn something new there; broke those rules myself replying here, but sure worth mentioning once...
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
That's actually not too high. In Memphis we average around 130 murders annually, or at least two per week, with a population under 750,000.
Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!