Denver police letting ShotSpotter contract expire after more than a decade of gunshot detection
The short version: Denver is dropping ShotSpotter but may just trade one surveillance vendor for another, possibly folding gunshot detection into Flock's growing camera network.
Our Take
Credit to Denver7 for tracking this one closely — ShotSpotter has been a punching bag for years over accuracy problems, high costs, and documented cases of bad data influencing policing decisions. Denver walking away from the contract sounds like a win on paper, but the department's own language about weighing "greater public safety benefits" from a new vendor is the part worth watching.
That phrase is doing a lot of work. Flock Safety has been aggressively expanding beyond license plate readers into acoustic gunshot detection, and plenty of departments ditching legacy ShotSpotter deals have landed right back in a Flock ecosystem — one that links gunshot alerts to the same camera networks already scanning every plate that drives through town. Swapping vendors isn't the same as swapping philosophies if the end result is more sensors feeding the same centralized surveillance pipeline.
We'll keep an eye on what Denver actually signs next. In the meantime, check our map to see what's already watching your streets, and if you want to push back locally, our take-action page has the tools to start.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of Denver7, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.