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Top article on that vice link: >In Chicago, a government watchdog says Shotspotter alerts have only led to evidence of gun crime in 9 percent of cases. >fewer

• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• jchw 4y ago
  Well, I'm a layperson to anything related to criminal investigation, but this is a little concerning to me. If you're in a particularly crime ridden area, my concern is how many of those 9% are the right evidence against the right person. It's pretty terrible if all it took to nab the wrong person was shoddy evidence from a shady and secretive company that is accused of having manipulated the evidence in the past. It is still quite terrible even if it's often correct, because that makes it much harder for someone who is innocent to do anything about it. Still, it's possible that the numbers Vice is showing does not demonstrate the problem.
• curiousllama 4y ago
  Honestly, I'd be surprised if 9% weren't below the rate from random searches. It's tragically quite common - and, to a point, quite rational - to carry a gun in some neighborhoods.
• xbar 4y ago
  80% of all stops and searches are unfounded. I would not want to live in a community so policed.
  • daenz 4y ago
    I wouldn't want to live in a community with 50,176 gunshot alerts either.
    • telchior 4y ago
      You're assuming the "gunshot alerts" are actually gunshots, though. As noted, the sensors will identify other sounds as gunshots, and the company won't reveal its methodology so... do you live in a neighborhood with 50k gunshots, or 5k gunshots and 45k backfiring cars / fireworks / loud songs with gunshot sound effects?
      • daenz 4y ago
        I wouldn't want to live in a community with even 10% of the loud noises being gunshots, no. Saying that there's only 5k real gunshots doesn't make it sound any better. Maybe we should focus on why there's so many gunshots in these specific communities.
        • telchior 4y ago
          Sure, that sounds like a great thing to focus on, but in this particular thread that's specifically about ShotSpotter it mainly serves to change the subject.
          • daenz 4y ago
            The topic has expanded to the related topics, as conversations do. ShotSpotter wouldn't even exist, much less be the topic of criticism, if there wasn't a rampant problem with gun violence in these communities.
            • hiptobecubic 4y ago
              The allegation is that gun violence is a requirement for ShotSpotter, but not the reason for it. The reason for it is that a magic wand that generates probable cause wherever and whenever you need it is extremely valuable to a police force that is judged by metrics like "How many guns did you find today?" The gun violence is just the camouflage that provides plausible deniability. If ShotSpotter had been founded in London they'd have called it "StabSpotter."
      • 4y ago
  • calvinmorrison 4y ago
    But ShotSpotter doesn't do stop and searches. If police are using this to justify searches, thats between the courts and police, not shotspotter
    • public_defender 4y ago
      The issue is that ShotSpotter may be profiting by giving police an excuse to search people when they would not otherwise have sufficient legal grounds.
      • calvinmorrison 4y ago
        Again sounds like the issue is between the police and the courts over what constitutes sufficient legal grounds.
        • ineedasername 4y ago
          An assessment of "sufficient" cannot be determined without understanding how the ShotSpotter system works. Therefore the argument is that police should not be able to use them as probable cause if they don't give some insight into how they work. This is no different than other technologies. DNA testing wouldn't be admissible in legal actions either if the tests were essentially black boxes that couldn't be scrutinized.
    • ineedasername 4y ago
      It markets itself as pinpointing gunshots and police use that as probable cause. Either they reveal something of their methodology so that courts can determine if police reliance on them is reasonable or police shouldn't be allowed to use them.
• jahewson 4y ago
  No, these numbers are meaningless without a null hypothesis to compare them to. If you stop random people in the monitored areas, at the right time of day, how many guns do you find?
  • bushbaba 4y ago
    You need cause to investigate someone. So sounds like even if shot spotter is not accurate, it’s still effective. Criminal is a criminal.
    • nequo 4y ago
      Not everyone who is searched has commited a crime. See, e.g., this paper: https://conrad-miller.github.io/qjab018.pdf https://conrad-miller.github.io/qjab018.pdf
      • daenz 4y ago
        You are not required to have committed a crime to be legally searched. If you're fleeing the area where gunshots have been reported, it's not unreasonable to search you.
    • cycomanic 4y ago
      So to rephrase your argument, shotspotter allows police to arrest people with made up evidence. You say that is a good thing, because they were criminals anyway. You have an interesting concept of the rule of law.
      • daenz 4y ago
        Not OP, but probable cause is not "made up evidence." If there's a report of a noise that sounds like a gunshot, and that results in a search of people who are running, and that search finds an illegal gun, that's reasonable.
        • woodruffw 4y ago
• shadowgovt 4y ago
  The reframing is that it have cops reason to go in armed and expecting an active shooter when 93% of the time there was no reason to expect that, and 4 it of 5 times SS reports led to civilians being stopped for no justification.
  • pxmpxm 4y ago
    The reality is in those areas cops are always armed and expecting active shooters. Look up the gunplay stats for places like Back of The Yards in Chicago.
    • shadowgovt 4y ago
      In that case, a technology encouraging them to go out expecting armed resistance when no crime has been committed is an obvious danger for the community.
      • pxmpxm 4y ago
        If you think armed cops are the obvious danger in shotspotter neighborhoods, you've departed objective reality. Eg https://chicago.suntimes.com/crime/2022/7/27/23280415/chicago-shootings-gun-violence https://chicago.suntimes.com/crime/2022/7/27/23280415/chicag...
        • shadowgovt 4y ago
          > If you think armed cops are the obvious danger Yes, I do think that. https://www.npr.org/2022/05/26/1101496374/chicago-police-13-year-old-shot-lawsuit https://www.npr.org/2022/05/26/1101496374/chicago-police-13-... It seems to me that to think otherwise is a "the omelet requires breaking eggs" argument.
    • solardev 4y ago
      Lived in Chicago (but not the south side) and can agree that the gun violence there is extreme. It's an war zone every day, with thousands of shootings a year and hundreds of homicides. That said, I don't think anyone is opposed to technology that can locate gunshots and deliver law enforcement to the right places. The gripe is that this company in particular has a history of being opaque and trying to cover up their failings, leading to questions about the effectiveness of their underlying technology and data integrity. The public can't tell whether this is a legitimate social good based on an effective tool or if the company is just ripping off tax payers and sometimes outright working with crooked cops to fabricate probable cause. Not every cop is crooked, and not every acoustic triangulation technology is fake. But this company isn't being transparent or well intentioned enough for the public, or even a limited group of outside experts, to make that determination. And they have a history of being willing to corrupt their data, altering evidence to facilitate false records from crooked cops. The right tools in the wrong hands can still be a problem. We don't know if this is the right tool, but the company has shown itself to be the wrong hands.
• braingenious 4y ago
  >9% actually seems like a lot? Considering that most criminals don't stick around after illegally discharging a firearm. Are you under the impression that the only evidence of a firearm being discharged is carried away by the person firing the gun? I was under the impression that evidence of a gunshot is kind of famously objective because of the presence of bullets, bullet holes, casings, victims, property destruction etc. By your reasoning, it’s a feasible proposition that criminals regularly patch up bullet holes and what, fireman carry their victims away from the scene?
  • daenz 4y ago
    >bullets, bullet holes, property destruction Find the bullet hole, and you've found the property destruction, and the bullet is either embedded in the property destruction or fragmented all of over the place, as bullets often do. So you could have just said "property damage." But tell you what, I'll go downtown and shoot a black paintball in a random direction, and tell you roughly where I was when I shot it, within 100m. It will be your job to find where that paintball hit. Good luck finding your evidence. >casings Casings are easier to find, but still very difficult if you don't have the precise location of where the shooting took place. >victims Firearm discharges don't always result in victims, or even victims willing to come forward. What are you honestly expecting cops to do when there's a gunshot report? Spend hours combing the city for some rogue bullet holes? It's not realistic. The best evidence you're going to get is rushing to the area where shots were reported and finding someone fleeing.
    • braingenious 4y ago
      So your answer to my initial question is “Yes. I believe that it is a reasonable assumption that all of the evidence of a gunshot is carried away by the shooter.” That’s a fascinating position! Based on how difficult it is to find any evidence whatsoever, would you conclude that gunshots are essentially inconsequential 91% of the time? If I believed that, I would advocate for the legalization of recreational firearm discharge in populated areas, since obviously they rarely actually cause any noticeable issue. Edit: A tech company going “Beep boop loud noise! Give us more public funds for our technology that we refuse to explain!” is not the same thing as an actual report of gunfire to me. As for what I expect the police to do? Nothing. Literally nothing at all, anywhere at any time. They’re not obligated to, and in my experience, that’s what they usually do. Nothing. I forgot to add “witnesses and complainants” as something that could be considered evidence of gunfire, but I’m assuming they can also be carried away
• woodruffw 4y ago
  9% would be a lot, if we had strong evidence that SpotShotter was the source of hard evidence leading to a gun seizure, and not simply legal pretext for frisking people who the police think look suspicious (or, more accurately, would otherwise like to target but lack admissible evidence to do so). It's the same problem that Stop and Frisk[1] in NYC had: you can make the contraband recovery numbers look fantastic, if you're willing to sweep peoples' civil rights under the rug. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop-and-frisk_in_New_York_City https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop-and-frisk_in_New_York_Cit...