ShotSpotter Gun Detection Device Reportedly Targets Communities of Color
The short version: theGrio Politics highlights community complaints that ShotSpotter's gunfire-detection microphones are concentrated in Black and brown neighborhoods, echoing the same siting bias we see with Flock ALPR cameras.
Our Take
Credit to theGrio Politics for putting a spotlight on ShotSpotter, the acoustic gunfire-detection network that's been dogged by accusations of racial bias in where it gets installed and how police respond to its alerts. It's not a license plate reader, but the underlying story is one we cover constantly at DeFlock: surveillance infrastructure doesn't get spread evenly across a city, it gets stacked on top of neighborhoods that already have the least political power to say no.
That pattern matters because these systems rarely operate in isolation. Cities that lean on ShotSpotter are often the same cities blanketing intersections with Flock cameras, and both technologies tend to cluster in the same over-policed zip codes. When you combine audio sensors that can trigger armed responses with a growing web of ALPR cameras logging every car that passes, you get a surveillance dragnet that treats entire communities as suspects by default, not by evidence.
If you want to see how thick that dragnet is where you live, check our camera map and look at what's actually watching your streets. And if you think your city council should be asking harder questions before signing another surveillance contract, our take-action page has concrete steps to push back.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of theGrio Politics, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.