San Francisco PD Manages Resources Better Using ShotSpotter
The short version: A decade-old ShotSpotter promo video shows the same pitch Flock uses today: trust the vendor's black-box tech to manage police resources, no independent proof required.
Our Take
This clip, produced by SoundThinking itself (then ShotSpotter) for the tech outlet SmartPlanet, is a company selling its own product — not a journalist testing it. That distinction matters. Gunfire-detection microphones, like ALPR cameras, get marketed as neutral efficiency tools that help departments "manage resources." What rarely makes the sales reel is the years of independent reporting on false positives, missed shots, and courts questioning whether ShotSpotter data holds up as evidence.
We cover ALPRs because acoustic sensors and camera networks are increasingly the same story: a private vendor installs sensitive infrastructure across a city, keeps the algorithms proprietary, and lets police departments repeat the vendor's own marketing language back to the public as if it were independent proof. SoundThinking has since folded ALPR and other surveillance products into its portfolio, so this old promo is really a preview of the pitch you hear about Flock cameras today — different sensor, same trust-us framing.
If your city is weighing a ShotSpotter or Flock contract, don't take the sales reel at face value. Check our map to see what's already deployed near you, and use our take-action guide to push your council for real audits before signing another surveillance check.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of SoundThinking, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.