Fayetteville City Council votes to move ahead with controversial gunshot detection software
After three months of debate, the Fayetteville City Council voted 6-4 Monday night to approve a one-year contract with a gunshot detection software company with one condition — that the city host public forums to get community input.
The City Council initially moved to approve the contract with ShotSpotter, a company based in California, Aug. 22 in an 8-2 vote. Council members Mario Benavente and Shakeyla Ingram voted against $217,250 in funding for the contract. Council member Deno Hondros then asked the council to reconsider the contract Sept. 12.
ShotSpotter claims to detect gunshots within a 3-square-mile radius using triangulation technology. Between 15 and 20 sensors are placed 30-40 feet above the ground on objects like poles and rooftops in each square mile of the designated area, according to ShotSpotter Inc.
“Each acoustic sensor captures the precise time and audio associated with impulsive sounds that may represent gunfire,” ShotSpotter’s website states. “This data is used to locate the incident and is then filtered by sophisticated machine algorithms to classify the event as a potential gunshot.”
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The system then alerts ShotSpotter’s Incident Review Center in California, where analysts decide if the sound was gunfire and alert law enforcement of the event, adding details like the type of gun fired, the possible number of weapons fired and the latitude and longitude of the suspected gunshot, according to ShotSpotter Inc.
After discussing ShotSpotter in work sessions, in the 7 p.m. regular meeting Monday, Benavente made a motion to not proceed with the contract, with Ingram seconding it.
Benavente cited concerns about the potential misuse of the technology by police and Fayetteville Police Chief Gina Hawkins’ inability to elaborate on the possible drawbacks of the ShotSpotter software. Hawkins told Benavente at the Aug. 22 council meeting that she was “not quite sure” of ShotSpotter’s cons.
“There has been a huge lack of transparency and accountability with regards to this new technology,” Benavente said at Monday night's meeting. “I’ve asked the chief of police on several occasions during public meetings and in private to let me know the pros and the cons of this technology. Every single time, she’s refused to answer.”
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Benavente said he was the only council member to attend a meeting with a ShotSpotter representative Monday where the representative explained some of the software’s negative attributes.
“He acknowledged that this tech has been misused, especially by communities who have a problem with their culture of policing,” Benavente said. “We here in Fayetteville, North Carolina, undoubtedly have a problem with our culture of policing. So I’m not interested in creating more unnecessary interactions between Fayetteville police and young people that end up on the front page of the Observer.”
Furthermore, Benavente said, council members received an email from retired Army Brig. Gen. William Jeffery Gothard imploring the council to not execute the ShotSpotter contract. Benavente provided a copy of the Nov. 7 email to the Observer. In the email, Gothard, the former chief of the Science and Technology Division of the Army’s Special Operations Command, stated similar technology had been used by the Army for years with little success.
“The technology does not prevent anything,” Gothard wrote. “No system tells you who fired a weapon and what they were wearing, where they ran to, or what vehicle they were driving. The best you can do is locate where a shot was fired from and when the shot was fired.”
Gothard also cited concerns about the software’s cost and where it would be operated.
“If the entire city is not covered, who do we discriminate against?” he wrote. “(Whose) neighborhood is covered by detection and is the decision made because of crime statistics for that neighborhood. If that is the case, then we have a larger problem (than) detecting a gunshot.”
Gothard’s final point questioned the integrity of the data that would be provided by ShotSpotter.
“The City Council needs to see specific crime, gunfire, and arrest data from municipalities that have implemented Shot Spotter or other similar systems,” Gothard wrote. “Under no circumstances should the City Council accept the data from the contractor. Their job is to sell Fayetteville the system and not discuss the limitations or overall effectiveness. What is the actual return on investment?”
Gothard recommended delaying a decision on the ShotSpotter contract for at least a year to see the software’s results in Durham, which announced in August plans to deploy the technology this month, according to city officials.
“If it doesn’t help in Durham, then why would we spend our tax dollars here?” he wrote. “All these vendors are scrambling to sell systems that the military is no longer purchasing because the Middle East wars are over.”
Ingram admitted she initially supported the use of ShotSpotter but, after doing further research and talking to officials in Durham, she now has concerns about implementing the technology.
“We know what the pros are to its seller, but we don’t know what the cons are to our citizens and how it will impact them,” she said.
Ingram said residents told her ShotSpotter made robocalls encouraging them to request local officials’ support of the contract.
“When a council member on this board spoke to a resident and they had an in-depth conversation about ShotSpotter, the resident felt that they had been misinformed by ShotSpotter about the reasons why they should support it,” Ingram said. “I would ask that you support not moving forward with this.”
Ingram cited the Fayetteville Police Department’s use of license plate reader technology as a current strategy for improving community safety that she felt had been successful and encouraged her colleagues to revisit the ShotSpotter contract at a later date.
Mayor Mitch Colvin reminded the council of the results of last week’s election, which saw Fayetteville residents vote to approve a $60 million public safety bond, which could fund a new 911 call center, new fire stations, renovations of existing fire stations and an expansion of the police department’s training academy.
“Overwhelmingly, the citizens, out of $97 million, set $60 million to public safety, meaning that my safety — I feel strongly enough to pay more,” Colvin said. “This is not to the exclusion of anything else that we’re doing. We’re trying to do everything from oversight of the police department — we’ve done that — to community investments, to license plate readers, to gun buybacks, to anything it takes to satisfy the safety of this community. And the citizens said, ‘This is important to me.’”
Benavente’s motion to reject the contract failed, 3-7, with Benavente, Ingram and council member Courtney Banks-McLaughlin voting in favor of the motion to table it and council members Johnny Dawkins, Kathy Jensen, D.J. Haire, Brenda McNair, Derrick Thompson, Hondros and Colvin voting against the motion.
After Benavente’s motion failed, Jensen motioned to approve the contract on the condition that three public forums are hosted by city staff.
Ingram opposed the motion, mentioning the case of Ja’Lana Dunlap-Banks, a Fayetteville woman who is suing the city after she says she was unconstitutionally detained by members of the Gang Unit who claimed they were searching for a nearby fugitive. Ingram said she was worried the use of ShotSpotter would result in residents being wrongfully suspected of involvement in a crime if they were simply in the area where a gunshot was detected.
“We got to look at this in a holistic approach here,” she said. “I would say if y’all are going to move this forward, hold off on the contract, have the discussions with the citizens, bring that back, and then you make the decision on the contract. But based off of what we’re dealing with publicly right now, it would be irresponsible.”
Ingram’s remarks were met with applause from the audience.
Banks-McLaughlin cited similar concerns, saying she also believed more public input was necessary before the contract was approved.
Ultimately, Jensen’s motion to approve the ShotSpotter contract passed 6-4, with McNair, Jensen, Colvin, Haire, Thompson and Dawkins voting in favor and Ingram, Benavente, Hondros and Banks-McLaughlin opposing the motion. The dates of the public forums have yet to be determined.
Public safety reporter Lexi Solomon can be reached at ABSolomon@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: Fayetteville City Council moves ahead with ShotSpotter after debate
