ShotSpotter Success 2/18/19: Help us identify the gunman

Our Take

Credit to the Columbus Division of Police for uploading this clip, but let's be clear about what it is: a department-produced highlight reel meant to build public trust in a surveillance tool, not an independent audit of how well it actually works. ShotSpotter (now sold as SoundThinking) has a long track record of overstated accuracy claims, missed or phantom alerts, and cities quietly dropping contracts after audits found the system didn't perform as advertised. A single 'success' story from six years ago tells us nothing about the false-positive rate, the racial skew in where microphones get installed, or how many officers show up to a 'shots fired' alert primed for a threat that isn't there.

This matters to us because ShotSpotter rarely operates alone. Departments increasingly stack it alongside Flock Safety ALPR cameras, license-plate networks, and real-time crime centers, creating a layered surveillance web where every sound and every passing car gets logged, cross-referenced, and stored. Each piece gets sold to the public as a narrow, common-sense tool for solving violent crime, but together they add up to constant automated monitoring of entire neighborhoods with almost no transparency about accuracy, retention, or who can access the data.

If you want to see whether this kind of infrastructure has already landed in your city, check our camera map, and if you'd rather push back than just watch it spread, our take-action page has concrete steps for making noise at your next city council meeting.