ShotSpotter Tech, good for Turks & Caicos Crime Fighting?

By Dana Malcolm

Staff Writer

#TurksandCaicos, November 14, 2022 – ShotSpotter, true to its name, is a gunfire locator that uses acoustic detection from sensors mounted on existing infrastructure to capture and report sounds that may be gunfire and the Opposition PDM party has repeatedly called for its use in the Turks and Caicos to help with the heightened shootings and The Bahamas recently signed a contract with the company.

The company website claims with its tech

• 90 percent of shootings are reported
• Police can dispatch to crime scenes in under 60 seconds
• Police can accurately find crime scenes coming within 82 ft of shots fired\
• Police find 89 percent of Shell Casings in homicide cases and
• Victim Transport Time is cut down to 6.8 min on average

But the technology has been subject to some controversy.

The same system was purchased and used in Baltimore since 2018,  but last year when a vote came up to renew the system, former FBI Agent Tyrone Powers told WBFF news, “There’s not a lot of evidence it has been extremely effective– whether its effectiveness is related to the fact that police officers don’t completely understand it, in terms of how effective its been we don’t know we don’t have the empirical data —we do know that it has not led to a lot of convictions so far.”

A similar complaint was made of the system after a study in Saint Louis, Missouri by Police Chief Magazine:  “The study was able to identify only 13 arrests uniquely tied to the Acoustic Gunshot Detection System calls. For a city with between 100 to 200 homicides annually, this is not exactly a great catch.”

Despite the complaints Baltimore still renewed its $760,000 thousand sub subscription showing some faith in the system anyway.

Another consideration for the TCI specifically is the sheer number of calls for gunshot like sounds will all have to be fielded by the local 911 operators and investigated by the police, both of whom in this past year have had several complaints against their responsiveness, and response time.

That aside, the Royal Turks and Caicos Islands Police Force continues to have extreme difficulty catching the perpetrators of gun crimes, with no one yet held accountable for the more than 20 murders since September third including the heinous incident in which a family’s car was sprayed with bullets killing a pregnant woman and her unborn baby, her partner, their three year old son, and injuring her 7 year-old daughter.

Based on the company’s claims the police would be able to get to crime scenes much faster and maybe even be first on the scene.

The accuracy of the system is also tempting, allowing police to pinpoint exactly where a crime scene is.  The need was clearly demonstrated in the case of that family killed on November 1st.

At that time, Trevor Botting, TCI Police Commissioner admitted that they did not find the family for hours because the shooting was outside the immediate range of where residents had reported hearing shots. Before police could arrive, residents found the grisly scene and walked around possibly trampling and touching evidence.

Magnetic Media, has before received a disturbing video of s resident bouncing shell casings in hand; in other incidents – including the slaughter of a young family – there was widely circulated proof that passersby likely contaminated the crime scene.

There are several testimonials listed by ShotSpotter.

James Sarkos of the Atlantic City Police Department said it increased investigators ability to find shooting scenes accurately and Ralph Evangelous, Former Police Chief of Wilmington North Carolina offered: “We’re finding crime scenes within three to six feet.” Several other police chiefs gushed about not only the accuracy of finding scenes but the amount of shots.

Marvin Dames, a former Minister of Security in The Bahamas, under whom the system was instituted there had said “We have completed sufficient research and are satisfied that this technology will assist us in reducing the high numbers of gun related crime in The Bahamas.”

The TCI’s Cabinet has not given any indication that they are considering the ShotSpotter technology.