Gunshot tracker’s pact on agenda
LR board plans look at extension
Little Rock officials are set to review a two-year extension to the city’s contract with ShotSpotter Inc., a company offering gunshot-detection technology that enables police to quickly respond to the approximate location of gunfire.
The city’s Board of Directors is scheduled to discuss an ordinance authorizing the contract extension at an agenda meeting today prior to next week’s formal board meeting, when board members will have the opportunity to vote to adopt the measure.
The city in 2018 approved the initial two-year agreement with ShotSpotter at a cost of $290,000 after receiving a 2017 grant from the U.S. Department of Justice.
The cost of the extension for two additional oneyear terms through Dec. 18, 2022, is listed as slightly more than $287,000.
According to the ordinance’s language, funding during year one of the extension will be provided by the same grant from the Department of Justice’s program known as Technology Innovation for Public Safety, or TIPS. Additional funding will come from another grant, which the ordinance describes as the “Crime Guns Grant.”
In an email Monday, Little Rock City Manager Bruce Moore said the grant funding will cover both years of the two-year extension.
ShotSpotter is a publicly traded company based in Newark, Calif.
The company’s system to detect gunshots relies on sensors placed on buildings or poles within a certain coverage area, according to ShotSpotter. When gunshots are detected, a report is sent to ShotSpotter’s socalled “Incident Review Center” for analysis. The information is then relayed to police.
According to the company’s website, “The entire transaction from initial gun
fire to alert takes place in less than 60 seconds.”
A memo from the city manager’s office contained with the meeting materials says details as to the approximate location, number and sequence of gunshots are made available to police via a report immediately after an incident has occurred.
When city officials approved the contract in 2018, the coverage area of the ShotSpotter system was for two square miles. The size of the coverage area will remain the same under the contract extension.
At the time, then-Chief of Police Kenton Buckner told city leaders that the system could be expanded beyond two square miles, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported in June 2018.
When asked about the decision to keep the coverage area the same, Moore wrote, “The City does plan on extending the scope of the covered area. However, additional funding will need to be identified.”
Like other cities nationwide, Little Rock experienced an increase in reported homicides last year.
According to police department statistics, the city logged 56 homicides in 2020, exceeding the 52 homicides reported in 2017 for the highest total in a decade.