INDIANAPOLIS — As police officers continue to respond to a record number of shooting incidents across Indianapolis, the police union is declaring an emergency of its own.
“Indianapolis police are declaring a public safety crisis and calling for immediate actions,” said FOP 86 President Rick Snyder during a news conference June 4.
Snyder said Mayor Joe Hogsett’s public safety plan, announced days before, would not do enough to immediately interrupt and intervene in another year of record violence that’s sweeping the city.
One of Snyder’s proposed solutions is a gunshot detection system: a network of acoustic sensors installed in high-crime areas that recognizes gunshots and immediately alerts law enforcement.
Think of it as a whole network of ears that are constantly listening for that tell-tale sound of trouble.
To learn more, 13News talked with Ron Teachman, a spokesperson for ShotSpotter, a company that developed its gunshot detection system which is now used in more than 100 cities across the country.
Some of the cities include South Bend, Cincinnati and East Chicago, Indiana.
“When a gunshot occurs, we detect it and locate it,” Teachman said.
The array of sound sensors – positioned on rooftops and telephone poles – uses an algorithm to confirm it is gunfire, filtering out fireworks or anything else, and then sends an immediate notification to police dispatch and officers in the area.
Police say that’s important because as often as 80 percent of the time, gunfire goes unreported. And the few times people do call police, they can’t say exactly where the gunfire is coming from.
"Such a system will provide immediate alerts of shots fired, pinpoint locations of the incident, expedites response for medical treatment for victims and collection of evidence on suspects,” Synder said.
South Bend Police Operations Chief Dan Skibins says the system has worked for his department.
“It has had a lot of investigatory value,” said Skibins, “and has done a lot to improve relationships in neighborhoods.”
Skibins said people who live in some of his city’s higher-crime neighborhoods had become desensitized to gunfire due to the perception that officers didn’t respond to much of the gunfire. But now that officers respond to every gunshot alert, Skibins said neighbors have also gotten more involved in helping them investigate.
The price tag can run in to the hundreds of thousands and its no magic bullet, but Snyder calls it an important addition to officers’ crime-fighting toolbox that lately, they say, needs more tools.
A spokesperson for IMPD said there are currently no plans to purchase the system. 13News reached out to the City County Council to see if members would support the of idea of looking into it. We’ll let you know when we hear back.