Durham city leaders vote against 3-year ShotSpotter contract

On Monday night, the Durham City Council voted to not bring back ShotSpotter technology.

The vote failed in a 4-2 vote, with Mayor Leonardo Williams and Mayor Pro Tempore Mark-Anthony Middleton.

City leaders were considering entering a new three-year contract with the gunfire detection technology.

The city’s one-year pilot of the gunshot detection system ended in December, but it's back on the table for discussion with a $650,000 price tag.

City councilors looked at data from the police department to determine if they wanted to sign a three-year deal.

City Council members against the program said the data didn't show it is useful to justify the cost, and could be harmful to communities.

"ShotSpotter, even if it worked as intended, does not do the one thing the community is calling on us to do: prevention," Council member Chelsea Cook said.

Middleton said ShotSpotter was never intended to stop or reduce gun violence.

"No one said that," he explained. "That argument was created, and then refuted, as part of the discussion."

ShotSpotter uses sensors, placed in a three-square-mile radius near downtown to detect gunshots and notify police.

There was an average of 3.9 alerts per day and 3.7 shots per alert. 26.9% of the ShotSpotter alerts also had a resident 911 call.

"We knew that we needed to get on scene quickly," said Durham Police Chief Patrice Andrews. "We knew that we needed to collect as much evidence and locate and collect as much evidence as possible, but we also respected council's decision. But that did not have an affect on how we did our work."

So far, DPD’s response to these ShotSpotter alerts has resulted in 24 arrests.

Andrews advocated in favor of the technology. She said it's significant that nearly 80% of the shooting reports to police were initiated by ShotSpotter.