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Summary
Redwood City is a small, middle-class city of about 74,000 in the San Francisco Bay Area. Until recently, residents fired so many bullets in celebration of New Year's Eve and the Fourth of July that the blasts would continue for hours.
In 1996, a neighborhood committee was formed to address issues of gunfire in the Friendly Acres neighborhood of Redwood City. The citizens asked city hall to find a solution, and with Dr. Robert Showen, a local researcher, and his work at SRI on acoustical sensors for seismic activity, the ShotSpotter Gunshot Location System was born.
As a result, the Redwood City Police Department became the first law enforcement agency in the country to reverse random gunfire activity in its community.
Problem overview
In 1996, Redwood City was having a consistent and increasing problem with gunfire, particularly “celebratory” gunfire in certain parts of the city on holidays. The noise finally became intolerable.
Many are unaware of the dangers of firing into the air. When bullets go up, they must come down. That often means bystanders are injured or killed. In California, one of them was 9-year-old Brian Perez, who died in 1998 when a stray bullet pierced his head while he played in his south Los Angeles back yard.
A neighborhood committee was formed by Salvadore Sandoval to address issues of gunfire in the Friendly Acres neighborhood of Redwood City.
``I lived in fear of holidays and Saturday nights,'' Redwood City resident Lorianna Kastrop told the San Jose Mercury News at the time, describing holidays where the gun-blasts would last for hours. Her home was riddled with gunfire during a late-night rampage years ago.
Solution – the ShotSpotter Gunshot Location System
One of the pieces of “evidence” that was presented to the council was a tape of the neighborhood during a New Years Eve celebration. The tape literally sounded like someone had recorded a firefight in downtown Beirut, Lebanon (then the hotspot for such comparisons) – it had a lot of impact on the participants in the City Council meeting.
Sandoval had already researched Dr. Robert Showen and his (then named) “Urban Gunshot Locator,” and he and his committee presented this to the City as well as the County as a solution to Redwood City’s growing celebratory gunfire issues.
The City moved forward with the system, as it was based on sound science, the risk of investment was minimal given the significance of the problem, and the actual cost was deemed reasonable for what was essentially a test installation.
Redwood City was instrumental in the development of the Gunshot Location System. As ShotSpotter’s first installation, they were a development partner and beta tester as well as a customer. Today it is seamlessly integrated into the 911 center. Dispatchers monitor displays at their workstations and instantly see a graphic alarm of where a shot has been fired, with a location. Dispatch immediately informs an officer in the area.
The Result
During its first year armed with the new ShotSpotter Gunshot Location System, the Redwood City Police Department markedly reduced problems at its ``Silent Night'' program on New Year's Eve 1996.
The new ShotSpotter system was touted in the local newspapers. Officers took a tactical approach to preventing gunfire through fliers that elementary school pupils took home to parents. The community soon learned it was illegal to fire a gun in the city, and if someone did, a computer would tell police from where the shot came.
As a result, the Redwood City Police Department became the first law enforcement agency in the country to reverse random gunfire activity in its community.
“Since the very first installation, we’ve seen about a 75% decrease in gunfire in our jurisdiction,” said Redwood City Chief of Police Carlos G. Bolanos. “The ShotSpotter system has made a significant difference in our community.”
The net has been that residents don’t dread those holidays in their neighborhoods anymore. ``Finding a high-tech solution was the way to go,'' Kastrop said. ``We feel much safer now.''
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