For years, gun-toting thugs in Co-op City have tested their weapons by firing rounds from the rooftops of high-rises. The deafening echoes of muzzle blasts ricochet through the sprawling complex's canyons — emboldening crooks and frightening the development's 50,000 residents.

"It's just a horror," said Iris Baez, chairperson of the complex's security committee. "I'm concerned that one of these bullets is going to go through a window and hit a child."

In January, the gunfire problem came to the forefront after a series of deadly shootings, and several people have been wounded in several other incidents.

Activist Sally Regenhard became so frustrated with almost nightly gunplay — and the failure to collar the crooks — that she began chronicling every gunshot she heard outside her apartment window. She noted several dozen over a few months.

"When you try to report it you can't pinpoint it and the police don't know where to go," she said.

Security officials hope to silence the mayhem with a high-tech gunshot-detection system that can almost instantaneously map exactly where a gun is fired.

They have listened to proposals from several bidders. One — California's ShotSpotter Gunshot Detection and Location System — claims its so-called acoustic triangulation system can pinpoint the source of gunfire within 10 feet.

Another bidder, Secures, uses a large number of sensors to record gunshots as they fly by — a system similar to one now in use in Chicago.

Here's how the ShotSpotter system would work:

Twelve to 16 sound sensors per square mile are mounted on the sides and rooftops of buildings and if a shot is fired, multiple sensors feed data to a computer, which then measures the distances of the shot from each sensor, pinpointing the exact location.

The information is then transmitted to a computerized map in the security office, where peace officers will be dispatched and the NYPD will be notified. City police refused to comment on the proposal.

ShotSpotter's sensors also detect the muzzle blast and can determine the weapon's acoustic fingerprint, determining what type of weapon has been fired.

The company estimates it would need to install 60 to 80 sensors throughout the 35 high-rises in the five-mile complex — the largest single residential development in the United States.

The system was most famously used to catch a notorious highway sniper who took pot shots at motorists in the Columbus, Ohio-area, killing one woman. ShotSpotter also is in use in Glendale, Ariz., Redwood City, Calif., Charleston, S.C., and Gary, Ind., and soon will be deployed in Washington, D.C., and upstate Rochester, the company says.

Co-op City officials hope to offset the $600,000 cost of the system with federal grants.

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