ShotSpotter in South Bend - Chief Teachman
The short version: A ShotSpotter-produced testimonial from a police chief is marketing, not evidence, and it echoes the same vendor-driven pitch Flock uses to sell blanket surveillance as the only fix for crime.
Our Take
This clip comes straight from SoundThinking, the company that makes ShotSpotter, starring a police chief singing its praises. That's worth noting up front: it's an ad, not independent reporting. When a surveillance vendor produces the video featuring its own customer, the goal isn't to inform the public — it's to sell more hardware to the next city council meeting.
The pitch is familiar to anyone who's watched Flock's sales playbook: crime is scary, residents feel unheard, so just add more sensors and trust the tech to fill the gap. What gets left out are the years of independent studies showing ShotSpotter's accuracy claims often don't hold up, and the fact that acoustic sensors and camera networks both quietly expand the surveillance footprint of a city with little public debate about civil liberties, false positives, or how the data gets stored and shared.
Cities considering ShotSpotter are usually also drowning in ALPR cameras from vendors like Flock. Check our map to see what's already watching your neighborhood, and visit take action if you want to push back before the next 'chief testimonial' video convinces your city council to buy in.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of SoundThinking, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.