NYPD’s Gunshot Detection System Wastes Time With False Positives, Audit Says

An NYPD vehicle in Brooklyn, New York City, on Feb. 17, 2019. (Mimi Nguyen Ly/The Epoch Times)

A $45 million detection system expected to help the New York Police Department respond to more incidences of gunfire has “overwhelmingly” sent officers to locations where no shooting could be found or confirmed, the city’s finance chief said.

The system, dubbed ShotSpotter, relies on a network of more than 2,000 hidden neighborhood sensors to assist law enforcement in pinpointing the location of suspected gunfire across New York City’s five boroughs.

When multiple acoustic sensors pick up a gunshot-like sound, the precise time, location, and short audio snippet will be transmitted to a monitoring center where trained human analysts will determine whether the sound was gunfire or a similar noise—such as fireworks or a car backfiring. Each time a ShotSpotter alert is deemed worth investigating, NYPD officers are dispatched.

Since 2014, the NYPD has paid SoundThinking, the California-based company behind ShotSpotter, more than $45 million to install the system and enlist the service of its incident analysts. It is also committed to spending a further $9 million before the current three-year contract term ends in December.

However, New York City Comptroller Brad Lander is pushing the NYPD to not renew the multimillion-dollar contract without a more thorough review of the product’s performance.

The Findings

In a report released June 20 by Mr. Lander’s office, auditors said they looked at the ShotSpotter alert records of eight selected months spanning 2022 and 2023 and found that the system had an extremely high detection rate of “unfounded” and “unconfirmed” shootings.

In June 2023, out of 940 ShotSpotter alerts that resulted in NYPD officers being deployed, 771 (82 percent) could not be confirmed as shootings at the scene, while 47 alerts (5 percent) were unfounded. Only 122 alerts (13 percent) were confirmed as shootings, according to the report.

Those false positives amount to hundreds of hours of police work, the auditors said.

Records show that officers spent an average of 20 minutes investigating “unfounded” alerts and 32 minutes investigating “unconfirmed” shots, representing about 427 hours in wasted shifts throughout that month.

“The evidence shows that NYPD is wasting precious time and money on this technology and needs to do a better job managing its resources,” Mr. Lander said. “Chasing down car backfires and construction noise does not make us safer.”

NYPD Dismisses Concerns

Despite the audit findings, NYPD has rejected the key recommendation from Mr. Lander’s Office. Instead, it said it will continue using the system without addressing the very high rate of alerts not ultimately confirmed as shootings.

“It is not feasible to conduct an evaluation prior to the contract renewal period,” the police department told the comptroller in a written response. “In summary, loss of the ShotSpotter program would result in a less safe working environment for officers and an increased chance of violent encounters for all New Yorkers.”

NYPD further argued that just because no evidence of a shooting was found does not mean no crime has been committed. While the actual effectiveness is hard to measure, it added, the mere presence of police officers could also serve as a deterrent to potential offenders.

“Where evidence is not recovered to confirm whether a shot was fired or not, it is not definitive proof that no crime has occurred, and it fails to acknowledge that the simple omnipresence of the Officers responding to the ShotSpotter alert dissuades further crime in and of itself,” it said.

“Omnipresence of Police Officers is a tactic that has been employed since the earliest days of law enforcement, however, in this case its reduction of crime is difficult to quantify.”

SoundThinking said that city auditors misplaced their priorities. Former two-time NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton serves on the company’s board of directors.

“The report uses the wrong metrics. It should focus on full awareness of gunfire as it occurs, rapid response, and, most importantly, lives saved,” the company said in response to the June 20 report. “It’s a fact that ShotSpotter saves lives in the places hit hardest by gun violence.”

Big Cities Rethink Gunfire Alerts

New York City is not the first big city to reconsider ShotSpotter.

Over the past years, a slew of cities including Atlanta, New Orleans, San Antonio, and Charlotte, North Carolina, have also decided to discontinue their use of ShotSpotter, for reasons ranging from high price tags to unsatisfactory performance. SoundThinking has disputed criticism about its product’s efficacy.

In February, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said his city won’t renew its contract with SoundThinking. The decision was made amid concerns that false positives might lead to what some progressive activists called “over-policing” in poor and nonwhite neighborhoods.

“The introduction of ShotSpotter technology in Chicago has changed the way some [Chicago Police Department] members perceive and interact with individuals present in areas where ShotSpotter alerts are frequent,” a report from the Chicago Office of Inspector General said.

Meanwhile, cities such as Cleveland, Seattle, and Little Rock, Arkansas, have shown interest in employing the technology.