Video: ShotSpotter tracks thousands of gunshots in Birmingham

Gunfire kills and wounds a lot of people in Birmingham every year.  So many shootings is one of the reasons Birmingham is called one of the most dangerous cities in the country.

About a year ago, Birmingham’s then-new police chief, A.C. Roper, and his department brought in new technology, called ShotSpotter, to help stop the madness.

ShotSpotter uses hidden audio sensors to detect gunfire. The technology can tell the difference between a firecracker and a gunshot.  It can pinpoint a shooting location within feet. 
   
In August, 2008, Shotspotter captured thirteen gunshots ringing out on 17th Place Southwest in Birmingham.  One of those bullets killed 17-year-old Lawanda Russell, who was caught in the crossfire on her way home from a neighborhood store.

Sergeant Carolyn Lavender is a dispatch supervisor in Birmingham.  She says the ShotSpotter system has revolutionized the way the department responds to and investigates gunfire.  “The dispatchers can actually hear the ShotSpotter go off and they can immediately dispatch a car to the scene.  And we’ve also had detectives come down to see where the shots were fired from and grids off of the map.”

Lavender says before ShotSpotter, citizens would call police about shots fired a dozen times a month.

The first year of ShotSpotter paints a more accurate picture of gun activity.  During 2008, Birminghamofficers were dispatched on 4,836 ShotSpotter calls. That’s more than a dozen shootings in the city every day. And that’s only the pockets of the city covered by the ShotSpotter system.

The police department won’t release the exact location of the high tech sensors, but there are still several neighborhoods outside the ShotSpotter umbrella.

Right now there are 90 ShotSpotter sensors covering six square miles.  The department would like to add more of the devices, which cost three thousand dollars apiece.

Deputy Chief Ray Tubbs said, “You’ve got to look at the monetary cost of that. I would tell you we’ve got to utilize what we’ve got now better and then while we’re doing that want to look at adding sensors.”

Just last week Shotspotter officials were in town to suggest ways to take advantage of the technology.

Jerry Davis, ShotSpotter’s chief operating officer said, “If they’ve got an area where there is a lot of gunfire they’ll put the notification on the doorknobs and let these people know that are shooting their guns that hey, we’re watching and we’re going to get you.  And the whole idea is to get the gunfire down.”

Deputy Chief Tubbs said implementing community-oriented strategies like that will help them tap ShotSpotter’s full potential.  “We’ve been going on the calls.  We’ve been arresting where we could.  We’re going to take that to another level and we’re going to do things that prevent the gunfire from happening in the first place.”

Hopefully that will help prevent senseless shootings like the one which killed Lawanda Russell.

Deputy Chief Tubbs said ShotSpotter has directly led to a few arrests.  That group includes James Rogers who officers arrested in January, 2008 after ShotSpotter detected two dozen gunshots by an automatic weapon in east Birmingham.