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Timely, as a boy was shot at last week in Chicago while setting off fireworks that triggered a ShotSpotter alert: https://chicago.suntimes.com/crime/2024/02/27

Timely, as a boy was shot at last week in Chicago while setting off fireworks that triggered a ShotSpotter alert: https://chicago.suntimes.com/crime/2024/02/27/chicago-police-officer-shotspotter-alert-opened-fire-boy-lighting-fireworks https://chicago.suntimes.com/crime/2024/02/27/chicago-police...

sixothree 3y ago
This is entirely grotesque. But the systematic deception is especially appalling.
- reaperman 3y ago
  ShotSpotter has (used to?) manually changed the location of detected gunfire to placate police who needed the evidence to point to their primary suspect. Then they could go to court and say “this system showed the gunshots came from the suspect’s location”. But “the system” didn't show that, until ShotSpotter employees manually changed the data. They spent a lot of effort hiding that as well.
  - wl 3y ago
    They don’t change the data. They change their interpretation of it. The police say the classifier got something wrong, so the classification gets updated, both for the record and to improve the classifier. The police say that the location is wrong. The company looks at the data, maybe finds that the system automatically located on an echo at one or more sensor and then recomputes the location using the primary pulse.
    - reaperman 3y ago
      The “data” which gets presented in court is the classification. So they changed the “data”. The underlying algorithm wasnt subject to examination by defense teams until a rules change like, last week.
      - wl 3y ago
        What gets presented in court is a "Detailed Forensic Report" that includes the timestamped audio waveforms, sensor locations, and screenshots of the multilateration computations. These reports, when used as evidence, are required to be available to the defense for rebuttal and crossexamination. One could, if one was so inclined, calculate shot locations by hand from these reports. The time stamped audio files are discoverable. The underlying algorithms have been made available to defense teams in countless Daubert and Frye hearings. I have no idea what you're referring to by "a rules change like, last week."
        reaperman 3y ago
        https://www.theverge.com/2024/2/15/24074214/justice-in-forensic-algorithms-act-democrats-mark-takano-dwight-evans https://www.theverge.com/2024/2/15/24074214/justice-in-foren...
        wl 3y ago
        A proposed law, not a rule change. One introduced in response to a novel DNA analysis technique being rejected in a Frye challenge under existing law.
        reaperman 3y ago
        How are you privy to the underlying algorithms/source-code being made available to defense teams? I thought the source code (algorithm) doesn't have to be made available to defense teams.
        wl 3y ago
        Daubert requires that expert testimony be based on "reliable principles and methods" and Frye requires "the thing from which the deduction is made must be sufficiently established to have gained general acceptance," both essentially requiring the disclosure of underlying algorithms if not the actual source code.
  - hcfman 3y ago
    Which is why we need public counter validation. (https://github.com/hcfman/sbts-aru https://github.com/hcfman/sbts-aru) :-)
fennecbutt 3y ago
[flagged]
- eBombzor 3y ago
  The cops made a big mistake but why is there some juvenile sitting in the dark, middle of the night, lighting up fireworks the moment the police start getting close. That's what I don't understand. There is some weird stuff going on in this story and the article jumping to conclusions isn't helping.
  - lanternfish 3y ago
    If you were a juvenile, and wanted to light off fireworks, when else would you do it but at night?
  - Jcowell 3y ago
    What lethal force is necessary when responding to a phenomenon that regular in mass occurs at least once a year in this country? Lightning up fire works is something I would expect a juvenile to do.
    - eBombzor 3y ago
      I like how all 3 replies ignored the part where I put in context "the moment police were getting close", as if to assume I was asking why fireworks were ignited at night in general. I saw the body cam footage, and the cops legitimately thought someone was shooting at them, because when they got close, they heard, what literally sounded like gunshots. Should they have just blind fired? Absolutely not, terrible training by those officers, but it's not hard to see why there would be some confusion.
      - ragazzina 3y ago
        >the cops legitimately thought someone was shooting at them But cops always "legitimately" think someone is shooting at them. Have you heard of the acorn incident?
sbierwagen 3y ago
He was setting off fireworks on January 25? Is there a holiday on that day I'm not aware of?
- bilbo0s 3y ago
  You're stretching man. We're a nation of laws, not of your awareness. It's just the words on the page. Was there a law being broken or not. In this case the answer was no. The police then proceeded to write up multiple claims of illegal activity that were all demonstrable falsehoods, and your defense of the illegal activity on the part of the police is that you aren't aware of a holiday? This is just the sort of thing we need to stamp out before these thugs kill either some other innocent kid, or cause a real police officer to be hurt or killed while trying to control the inevitable community reaction to their bird brained behavior. These cops need to be off the force yesterday. Yes they are liabilities waiting to happen. Yes they are dishonest. But the real reason we need to get rid of them is because they are unpredictable. We have no idea what anyone who will shoot at innocent kids and lie about it today will do tomorrow. Honest cops are predictable. Dishonest cops are just loose cannons and we need to cut them out at every opportunity.
- 9935c101ab17a66 3y ago
  Can I ask why you’re concerned about the legitimacy of the kids reasoning for setting off fireworks? Like, if he was shot and killed on a holiday, it’s not his fault, but it’s perfectly reasonable to be shot and killed by a police officer when a opaque surveillance system reports gunshots on non-holidays?
  - sbierwagen 3y ago
    Cops are Bayesian reasoners. If you set off fireworks inside the White House, right now, would you be surprised to suddenly meet the acquaintance of many armed men? Fireworks don't often go off in the Oval Office. Loud banging noises are therefore assumed to be gunfire, not fireworks. If you set off fireworks on the South Pole on July 4th, would you meet police? No, and for two reasons: July 4th is a well known day for setting off fireworks, and the South Pole is far away from basically everything. If you set off fireworks shortly before midnight, on a random Thursday in January, in a city that's famous for having large numbers of murders, should policemen assume it's fireworks, or gunshots?
aaron695 3y ago
You can listen to the ShotSpotter audio from that incident here - https://www.chicagocopa.org/case/2024-0002095/ https://www.chicagocopa.org/case/2024-0002095/ I see nothing wrong done by ShotSpotter. It accurately reported the location of a noise that sounded like gunfire. What is timely about this? Do you want the police to not investigate gunshots? I don't care about how they approached the scene, their training has nothing to do with ShotSpotter which is the discussion at hand. Also fireworks are illegal to set off in Chicago so no legitimate activity was interrupted.
- remram 3y ago
  "interrupted activity" is the worse euphemism I have ever seen for a child being shot, even in the USA.
- incanus77 3y ago
  As detailed in the article, the placement of ShotSpotter sensors in the Albequerque area roughly correlates to wealth and class. And it details the ShotSpotter culture of secrecy around sensor placement, so that even police departments don't necessarily know where the sensors are. Combine that with the racially-charged patterns of policing in this country[1][2], where certain populations are disproportionately profiled and experience use-of-force incidents. It's extremely timely in the sense that at present, we have systemic problems with where police force is being directed, and ShotSpotter is likely helping tip those scales — but not in the right direction. [1] https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/racial-profiling-texas-report-shows-significant-disparities-stops-and-searches https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/racial-profiling-texas-r... [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/opinions/systemic-racism-police-evidence-criminal-justice-system/#Policing https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/opinions/system...

sixothree 3y ago

This is entirely grotesque. But the systematic deception is especially appalling.

reaperman 3y ago
ShotSpotter has (used to?) manually changed the location of detected gunfire to placate police who needed the evidence to point to their primary suspect. Then they could go to court and say “this system showed the gunshots came from the suspect’s location”. But “the system” didn't show that, until ShotSpotter employees manually changed the data. They spent a lot of effort hiding that as well.
- wl 3y ago
  They don’t change the data. They change their interpretation of it. The police say the classifier got something wrong, so the classification gets updated, both for the record and to improve the classifier. The police say that the location is wrong. The company looks at the data, maybe finds that the system automatically located on an echo at one or more sensor and then recomputes the location using the primary pulse.
  - reaperman 3y ago
    The “data” which gets presented in court is the classification. So they changed the “data”. The underlying algorithm wasnt subject to examination by defense teams until a rules change like, last week.
    - wl 3y ago
      What gets presented in court is a "Detailed Forensic Report" that includes the timestamped audio waveforms, sensor locations, and screenshots of the multilateration computations. These reports, when used as evidence, are required to be available to the defense for rebuttal and crossexamination. One could, if one was so inclined, calculate shot locations by hand from these reports. The time stamped audio files are discoverable. The underlying algorithms have been made available to defense teams in countless Daubert and Frye hearings. I have no idea what you're referring to by "a rules change like, last week."
      - reaperman 3y ago
        https://www.theverge.com/2024/2/15/24074214/justice-in-forensic-algorithms-act-democrats-mark-takano-dwight-evans https://www.theverge.com/2024/2/15/24074214/justice-in-foren...
        wl 3y ago
        A proposed law, not a rule change. One introduced in response to a novel DNA analysis technique being rejected in a Frye challenge under existing law.
      - reaperman 3y ago
        How are you privy to the underlying algorithms/source-code being made available to defense teams? I thought the source code (algorithm) doesn't have to be made available to defense teams.
        wl 3y ago
        Daubert requires that expert testimony be based on "reliable principles and methods" and Frye requires "the thing from which the deduction is made must be sufficiently established to have gained general acceptance," both essentially requiring the disclosure of underlying algorithms if not the actual source code.
- hcfman 3y ago
  Which is why we need public counter validation. (https://github.com/hcfman/sbts-aru https://github.com/hcfman/sbts-aru) :-)

fennecbutt 3y ago

[flagged]

eBombzor 3y ago
The cops made a big mistake but why is there some juvenile sitting in the dark, middle of the night, lighting up fireworks the moment the police start getting close. That's what I don't understand. There is some weird stuff going on in this story and the article jumping to conclusions isn't helping.
- lanternfish 3y ago
  If you were a juvenile, and wanted to light off fireworks, when else would you do it but at night?
- Jcowell 3y ago
  What lethal force is necessary when responding to a phenomenon that regular in mass occurs at least once a year in this country? Lightning up fire works is something I would expect a juvenile to do.
  - eBombzor 3y ago
    I like how all 3 replies ignored the part where I put in context "the moment police were getting close", as if to assume I was asking why fireworks were ignited at night in general. I saw the body cam footage, and the cops legitimately thought someone was shooting at them, because when they got close, they heard, what literally sounded like gunshots. Should they have just blind fired? Absolutely not, terrible training by those officers, but it's not hard to see why there would be some confusion.
    - ragazzina 3y ago
      >the cops legitimately thought someone was shooting at them But cops always "legitimately" think someone is shooting at them. Have you heard of the acorn incident?

sbierwagen 3y ago

He was setting off fireworks on January 25? Is there a holiday on that day I'm not aware of?

bilbo0s 3y ago
You're stretching man. We're a nation of laws, not of your awareness. It's just the words on the page. Was there a law being broken or not. In this case the answer was no. The police then proceeded to write up multiple claims of illegal activity that were all demonstrable falsehoods, and your defense of the illegal activity on the part of the police is that you aren't aware of a holiday? This is just the sort of thing we need to stamp out before these thugs kill either some other innocent kid, or cause a real police officer to be hurt or killed while trying to control the inevitable community reaction to their bird brained behavior. These cops need to be off the force yesterday. Yes they are liabilities waiting to happen. Yes they are dishonest. But the real reason we need to get rid of them is because they are unpredictable. We have no idea what anyone who will shoot at innocent kids and lie about it today will do tomorrow. Honest cops are predictable. Dishonest cops are just loose cannons and we need to cut them out at every opportunity.
9935c101ab17a66 3y ago
Can I ask why you’re concerned about the legitimacy of the kids reasoning for setting off fireworks? Like, if he was shot and killed on a holiday, it’s not his fault, but it’s perfectly reasonable to be shot and killed by a police officer when a opaque surveillance system reports gunshots on non-holidays?
- sbierwagen 3y ago
  Cops are Bayesian reasoners. If you set off fireworks inside the White House, right now, would you be surprised to suddenly meet the acquaintance of many armed men? Fireworks don't often go off in the Oval Office. Loud banging noises are therefore assumed to be gunfire, not fireworks. If you set off fireworks on the South Pole on July 4th, would you meet police? No, and for two reasons: July 4th is a well known day for setting off fireworks, and the South Pole is far away from basically everything. If you set off fireworks shortly before midnight, on a random Thursday in January, in a city that's famous for having large numbers of murders, should policemen assume it's fireworks, or gunshots?

aaron695 3y ago

You can listen to the ShotSpotter audio from that incident here - https://www.chicagocopa.org/case/2024-0002095/ https://www.chicagocopa.org/case/2024-0002095/ I see nothing wrong done by ShotSpotter. It accurately reported the location of a noise that sounded like gunfire. What is timely about this? Do you want the police to not investigate gunshots? I don't care about how they approached the scene, their training has nothing to do with ShotSpotter which is the discussion at hand. Also fireworks are illegal to set off in Chicago so no legitimate activity was interrupted.

remram 3y ago
"interrupted activity" is the worse euphemism I have ever seen for a child being shot, even in the USA.
incanus77 3y ago
As detailed in the article, the placement of ShotSpotter sensors in the Albequerque area roughly correlates to wealth and class. And it details the ShotSpotter culture of secrecy around sensor placement, so that even police departments don't necessarily know where the sensors are. Combine that with the racially-charged patterns of policing in this country[1][2], where certain populations are disproportionately profiled and experience use-of-force incidents. It's extremely timely in the sense that at present, we have systemic problems with where police force is being directed, and ShotSpotter is likely helping tip those scales — but not in the right direction. [1] https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/racial-profiling-texas-report-shows-significant-disparities-stops-and-searches https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/racial-profiling-texas-r... [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/opinions/systemic-racism-police-evidence-criminal-justice-system/#Policing https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/opinions/system...