>In Chicago, a government watchdog says Shotspotter alerts have only led to evidence of gun crime in 9 percent of cases.
>fewer than 2 in 10 investigatory stops following ShotSpotter alerts resulted in the recovery of a gun
9% actually seems like a lot? Considering that most criminals don't stick around after illegally discharging a firearm. And 1 in 5 resulting in the recovery in a gun? Vice is really bending over backwards to pretend that these numbers are bad.
If you're in a particularly crime ridden area, my concern is how many of those 9% are the right evidence against the right person. It's pretty terrible if all it took to nab the wrong person was shoddy evidence from a shady and secretive company that is accused of having manipulated the evidence in the past. It is still quite terrible even if it's often correct, because that makes it much harder for someone who is innocent to do anything about it.
Still, it's possible that the numbers Vice is showing does not demonstrate the problem.
You have an interesting concept of the rule of law.
The average police response time in Chicago is 5-6 minutes[0]. I'm going to bet that active shootings are on the fast side of the average. Having lived in Chicago for 7 years, I can tell you there are areas where you regularly see police patrolling.
0. https://mediaprogram.maps.arcgis.com/apps/Minimalist/index.h...
In any case, this is all supposition. We aren’t being allowed to review the actual evidence, so for all I know SpotShotter is just telling the police what they’re asking it to.
It's the same problem that Stop and Frisk[1] in NYC had: you can make the contraband recovery numbers look fantastic, if you're willing to sweep peoples' civil rights under the rug.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop-and-frisk_in_New_York_Cit...
Are you under the impression that the only evidence of a firearm being discharged is carried away by the person firing the gun? I was under the impression that evidence of a gunshot is kind of famously objective because of the presence of bullets, bullet holes, casings, victims, property destruction etc.
By your reasoning, it’s a feasible proposition that criminals regularly patch up bullet holes and what, fireman carry their victims away from the scene?
Find the bullet hole, and you've found the property destruction, and the bullet is either embedded in the property destruction or fragmented all of over the place, as bullets often do. So you could have just said "property damage."
But tell you what, I'll go downtown and shoot a black paintball in a random direction, and tell you roughly where I was when I shot it, within 100m. It will be your job to find where that paintball hit. Good luck finding your evidence.
>casings
Casings are easier to find, but still very difficult if you don't have the precise location of where the shooting took place.
>victims
Firearm discharges don't always result in victims, or even victims willing to come forward.
What are you honestly expecting cops to do when there's a gunshot report? Spend hours combing the city for some rogue bullet holes? It's not realistic. The best evidence you're going to get is rushing to the area where shots were reported and finding someone fleeing.
That’s a fascinating position! Based on how difficult it is to find any evidence whatsoever, would you conclude that gunshots are essentially inconsequential 91% of the time? If I believed that, I would advocate for the legalization of recreational firearm discharge in populated areas, since obviously they rarely actually cause any noticeable issue.
Edit:
A tech company going “Beep boop loud noise! Give us more public funds for our technology that we refuse to explain!” is not the same thing as an actual report of gunfire to me. As for what I expect the police to do? Nothing. Literally nothing at all, anywhere at any time. They’re not obligated to, and in my experience, that’s what they usually do. Nothing.
I forgot to add “witnesses and complainants” as something that could be considered evidence of gunfire, but I’m assuming they can also be carried away
That said, I don't think anyone is opposed to technology that can locate gunshots and deliver law enforcement to the right places. The gripe is that this company in particular has a history of being opaque and trying to cover up their failings, leading to questions about the effectiveness of their underlying technology and data integrity. The public can't tell whether this is a legitimate social good based on an effective tool or if the company is just ripping off tax payers and sometimes outright working with crooked cops to fabricate probable cause.
Not every cop is crooked, and not every acoustic triangulation technology is fake. But this company isn't being transparent or well intentioned enough for the public, or even a limited group of outside experts, to make that determination. And they have a history of being willing to corrupt their data, altering evidence to facilitate false records from crooked cops.
The right tools in the wrong hands can still be a problem. We don't know if this is the right tool, but the company has shown itself to be the wrong hands.
Eg https://chicago.suntimes.com/crime/2022/7/27/23280415/chicag...
Yes, I do think that.
https://www.npr.org/2022/05/26/1101496374/chicago-police-13-...
It seems to me that to think otherwise is a "the omelet requires breaking eggs" argument.
No, I wouldn't, because your facts are wrong. Yes, London police are generally unarmed, but they still get called to respond to situations where there is a likely armed suspect, and in those cases, they send in special units that are armed.
The question here -- that you avoided -- is, what is the appropriate probability before sending in such an officer, and is it higher than the 7% in the situation you cited? You were asking others to be outraged that there was "only" a 7% chance of an actual armed shooter. In an attempt to move the discussion forward, I asked what the appropriate value is, so as to appropriately judge whether such intervention was unwarranted.
To which your entire response was to shoehorn in an irrelevant factoid about London and falsely imply I'm not aware of it. (And, of course, work in a Fermi reference, because, why not?)
If I may make a suggestion: next time someone asks a substantive question, and you don't have a substantive answer, just don't reply. That's a much better approach for the forum than what you just did.
In that context, ShotSpotter's mechanism bordering on ascientific prognostication should be considered dangerous to the community because it is increasing the chances of fatal encounters for no benefit. It's basically SWATting with a fancy corporate branding.
What part of my comment is that (or anything else you've said) responding to? I asked a simple question: what is the appropriate "probability of a shooter" that justifies going in with a protocol that expects one? Now you're just guessing things that have little to do with what I said.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32259925
But yes, "tighten up" those Fermi estimates for a question no one asked and which has no bearing on the discussion.
I would not want to live in a community so policed.
And while I like the concept behind ShotSpotter, the company, it's methods and its data governance are... Shoddy. That's probably the most charitable I can put it from what I've read about them.
Another thing I didn't point out in my comment is that ShotSpotter also changes its data if police tell them to. Which seems like either an admission that their sensor is not very good, or that they're willing to compromise good data when told to.
Maybe we should focus on why there's so many gunshots in these specific communities.
The gun violence is just the camouflage that provides plausible deniability. If ShotSpotter had been founded in London they'd have called it "StabSpotter."
I also hear kids shooting fireworks, and those modifications people do to their motorcycles and cars to make them sound like they're backfiring (even if they aren't; I don't know how these things work).
This is no different than other technologies. DNA testing wouldn't be admissible in legal actions either if the tests were essentially black boxes that couldn't be scrutinized.