ShotSpotter Company Overview
ShotSpotter is the world leader in gunshot and explosion location and detection systems for law enforcement, homeland security, and military. For more than a decade, the company has been delivering patented, wide-area acoustic surveillance systems capable of operating in diverse environments including urban communities, seaports and distribution gateways, university campuses, stadiums and convention centers, critical infrastructure, airports, and military bases. The ShotSpotter GLS is deployed in a growing number of cities and counties across the U.S. and is used by dispatchers, emergency personnel, investigators, and crime analysts to reduce and target gun violence. In addition to major metropolitan areas, the company's customers have included Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), US Attorney's Office, Department of Justice, US Joint Forces Command, US Air Force and the US Army.
Mission
ShotSpotter's mission is to help communities reduce illegal gunfire and thereby increase community safety, assist Homeland Security with the protection of critical infrastructure and to help our armed forces identify and react to enemy fire with unprecedented speed and efficiency. With the help of ShotSpotter solutions, police, first responders and field personnel are better equipped to quickly locate and analyze the source of gunfire or explosions, saving time and money, and protecting the safety of the community at large. Similarly, amid the reality of modern day warfare which our first responders and armed forces face daily, law enforcement and troops gain crucial actionable intelligence, manage their resources and respond more quickly and accurately thanks to ShotSpotter.
History
The idea for ShotSpotter was conceived in the early 1990s by Dr. Robert Showen, then a senior engineer at SRI International in Menlo Park, CA and now Chief Scientist at ShotSpotter. Dr. Showen wanted to find a way to do real-time gunshot detection as an aid to law enforcement. At roughly the same time, scientists, at the United States Geological Survey (USGS) in 1992, found that they were able to locate the sound of gunfire by running acoustic data through the same software designed to locate earthquakes, although at the time no sensor platform existed to collect the necessary acoustic data. Upon learning of the USGS results, Dr. Showen determined that a sensor network and law enforcement-friendly software could be developed to detect gunfire and assist government and public safety agencies. In 1995, Dr. Showen founded ShotSpotter a precursor firm with the purpose of developing this technology.
Trilon installed the nation's first gunshot location system in Redwood City, CA in late 1995. The system quickly proved indispensable, and gunfire rates dropped as a result. "ShotSpotter has assisted the Redwood City Police Department in dramatically reducing celebratory and random gunfire," Redwood City Chief of Police Carlos Bolanos commented at the time. The Redwood City Police Department credits the ShotSpotter technology with enabling them "to prevent gunfire crimes, deaths and serious injuries from occurring."
A paper describing the early work in Redwood City is "An Operational Gunshot Location System" Proc SPIE, Vol. 2935, 130-139 (1997)
In 1997, the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) conducted an independent test of ShotSpotter and found the system to be both accurate and effective, reporting that "the ShotSpotter [Gunshot Location System] accurately detected 80% of test fire incidents inside the one square-mile coverage are to within 40 feet." In 1999, the US Patent & Trademark Office granted the company's first patent (#5,973,998), covering the core ShotSpotter technology. Subsequent installations are protecting citizens in Los Angeles, CA; Glendale, AZ; Rochester, NY; Minneapolis, MN; Oakland, CA; Birmingham, AL; Gary, IN and Washington, DC.
In 2005, ShotSpotter acquired Atlanta-based Centurist Systems, the industry-revolutionizing developer of the only individual-worn gunshot location sensors in the world. Individual-worn sensors as well as vehicle- and installation-mounted sensors now constitute an important aspect of ShotSpotter’s technology offerings to the US Department of Defense and the military services of friendly nations. In two short years, US Joint Forces Command, US Air Force, the US Army and others have begun to adopt ShotSpotter technology for battlefield use.
Today, the company has been awarded several patents and has many others pending. Its systems are deployed in cities across the nation, from Los Angeles, CA to Charleston, SC; from a suburb of Phoenix, AZ to Rochester, NY. And US combat soldiers have begun to rely on ShotSpotter to help them track their own forces and locate enemies in real time across the twenty-first century battlefield.