JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – When a shooting earlier this month left one person dead and two more wounded, it was ShotSpotter – not members of the public – that tipped off police.
The gunfire detection technology uses a network of specialized microphones strategically placed around a five-mile zone in Northwest Jacksonville to pick up on gunshots and alert law enforcement. Based on its success so far, Sheriff Mike Williams isn't ruling out expanding its reach down the road.
"We lost a lot of ground this year, there is no doubt about it," Williams said Thursday. "But I look at that and say, 'Where would we have been if we had not had these things in place already?'"
The city pays ShotSpotter more than $325,000 a year to operate and track gunfire from the company's headquarters. The information is then relayed to the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office, which is among 100 or so agencies across the country using it, and it's sent directly to officers' phones.
Williams said the Sheriff's Office is still reviewing data collected by ShotSpotter during its first two years of operation here. But he sees the potential for an expansion, perhaps along 103rd Street on the city's Westside, sometime in the near future with the support of Mayor Lenny Curry's Office.
Tim Reeves, who lives in the area near 103rd Street, told News4Jax on Thursday that he would welcome the high-tech crime-fighting technology. "I think that's needed in all of Duval County." he said.
Steve Carter, a representative for ShotSpotter, said Jacksonville is making the most of the technology by zeroing in on a few areas with the goal of finding out who is pulling the trigger in these shootings.
"How do we find out who the serial trigger-pullers are?" Carter said. "So we can focus our investigative and enforcement efforts on those people who are most terrorizing the community."