New Haven Independent

With those words, City Plan Commission chair Patricia King called for a vote. She and her fellow commissioners approved application to a grant to receive and install new technology to detect the location of gunshots.

The technology, to be supplied by a Mountain View, California-based company called ShotSpotter, Inc., will be located at city locations to be determined by the department. The technology apparently is able to respond to the sound of a gunshot within a two square mile radius, determine its precise location, and then relay the data rapidly to a police communications center.

King (on the left in the photo, with fellow Commissioner Roland Lemar and City Engineer Dick Miller) noted that the project comes with no expense to the city. Federal funding to the tune of $374,120 has been set aside for the NHPD by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Community Oriented Policing Office (COPS) through what is described in the City Plan report as a congressional earmark.

Clients for ShotSpotter’s patented technology include major cities such as Washington, D.C., and Oakland, as well as the FBI and the U.S. Army.

Currently the NHPD rely primarily on calls from the community to report gunshots, but such human-based responses often involve guesswork. The new technology, says the NHPD, will facilitate investigations and lead to more arrests.

The commissioners’ vote at its meeting last Wednesday night asks the aldermen to authorize the mayor to apply to receive the COPS funds, which will then permit the city to enter an agreement with Shot Spotter, Inc to install the equipment, beginning this year and running through 2011.