Yesterday, Wired published a story based on leaked data from the company behind the ShotSpotter gunshot detection technology, revealing all the locations in the country where ShotSpotters are deployed.
That includes St. Louis.
An interactive map produced by Wired based on the leaked information shows that ShotSpotters in St. Louis are primarily placed in north city and north county, with their presence in south city limited to a patch that roughly includes Tower Grove East, Gravois Park and Dutchtown.
According to the Wired article, the company behind ShotSpotter – Fremont, California-based SoundThinking – doesn't always inform the police departments they work with about where they are placing the microphones. A county police spokesperson tells the RFT they do know where their ShotSpotters are.
"You, as well as I, can overlay the maps of ShotSpotter with the maps of racial diversity in the city," says defense attorney David Mueller, who until recently was running as a candidate for Circuit Attorney. "It's one-to-one in terms of over-policing our Black and Latino communities."
Mueller and many others have raised concerns about the veracity of the science behind ShotSpotter. The technology essentially involves having a "microphone sensor" in place that alerts authorities anytime it detects what it thinks is a gunshot.
However, a study conducted by the MacArthur Justice Center found that when the technology was deployed in Chicago, it generated roughly 60 false positives every day. The study questioned ShotSpotter's ability to distinguish between gunfire and "firecrackers, backfiring cars, construction noises, helicopters, and other loud, impulsive sounds." Chicago announced earlier this month it would not be renewing its contract with the company.
"The science on ShotSpotter isn't very good," Mueller says.
Mueller also says it can wreak havoc in terms of data collection. Because there are so many sensitive microphones in some neighborhoods and none in others, it can make it appear as if one area has way more instances of "shots fired" than another, if many of those calls are generated by a loud noise that isn't gunfire.
"I remember stories that came out about the number of shootings increasing in 2021 and 2022," Mueller says. "I think we really have to call all those questions at this point because it's like, were you responding to actual shots fired or were you responding to ShotSpotter telling you that that's what happened?"
It is unclear how much the city or county government pays to use the technology. A KSDK article from last year puts the price between $65,000 to 90,000 per square mile per year.
A 2020 report compiled by the National Crime Gun Intelligence Governing Board says that gunshot detection systems like ShotSpotter "are an effective tool to investigate previously undetected firearms related criminal activity." St. Louis City Police Chief Robert Tracy, then the chief of Wilmington, Delaware, wrote an opening letter to the report.
One invoice posted to the city's public records portal shows a $208,000 payment to the company for a "ShotSpotter Flex subscription" running from November 2020 to October 2021. Another invoice for the subscription for $54,799 covers December 2021 to October 2022. There is another invoice from the company indicating the city paid them $36,000 in January 2021.
"I think our government has to look at this map with clear eyes and a little self-reflection in terms of how we're allocating our resources," Mueller says.
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