Three federal lawmakers from Massachusetts signed onto a letter urging a national probe into how ShotSpotter is being funded amid concerns that the technology Boston Police says is critical to saving lives is ineffective and racially biased.
In the Tuesday letter, U.S. Senators Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and U.S. Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon try to convince the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security to open an investigation into DHS grant funding of the ShotSpotter system “to determine whether it is an appropriate use of taxpayer dollars.”
“Several recent reports have cast substantial doubt on the accuracy and effectiveness of the ShotSpotter gunshot detection system and have raised serious questions about its contribution to unjustified surveillance and over-policing of black, brown and latino communities,” the lawmakers wrote to Inspector General Joseph Cuffari.
The investigation would, in part, look into whether the Department of Homeland Security’s spending of taxpayer dollars on the gunshot detection technology is a violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, “which prohibits recipients of federal financial assistance from discriminating based on race, color and national origin.”
The concerns are similar to those raised in a report released last month by the American Civil Liberties Union, which citing records from the Boston Police Department, found that nearly 70% of ShotSpotter alerts resulted in no evidence of gunfire from 2020-22.
City councilors cited the ACLU report, which showed the technology was mostly used in communities of color, particularly in Dorchester and Roxbury, when petitioning for Boston’s police commissioner to delay signing a new contract extending the city’s use of ShotSpotter during a Monday hearing that reviewed the police budget.
BPD Commissioner Michael Cox denied the request, saying that ShotSpotter, which places sensors that detect audio aimed at transmitting the sound of gunshots quickly to police, “saves lives” — particularly in instances where shots are fired late at night and people in the area don’t call 911.
“It’s how we stay safe,” Cox said. “It’s very, very important to how we deploy and address certain neighborhoods and issues and crime.”
Data compiled by the Boston Police Department last year showed gun violence was highly concentrated in four neighborhoods, Dorchester, Jamaica Plain, Mattapan and Roxbury, from 2018-22.
