Richmond police make house calls to discourage promiscuous gunfire
Contra Costa Times
By Karl Fischer
January 22, 2010
Some towns emphasize a fireworks show. Others close streets for a nightlong party or a morning parade.
In Richmond's flatland neighborhoods, the ringing-in of the new year takes on a percussive quality — one that sends even police officers scurrying for cover at the stroke of midnight.
But the city aims to curtail celebratory gunfire, on holidays or otherwise, with the help of thousands of dollars invested in surveillance cameras and gunshot-detection technology.
"We went out right after New Year's and started knocking on doors," said Richmond police Capt. Eugene McBride, who supervises the patrol in south Richmond. "We were basically asking people why someone was shooting off a gun on their property."
Officers using ShotSpotter technology detected 119 gunshots around town during the minutes after midnight Jan. 1. A few days later, teams of officers with lists of addresses canvassed the Southern Policing District.
"Nobody admitted to firing a gun in the air. Most denied they had any firearms," McBride said. "But we were able to make contact, provide some public education while letting people know that we're paying attention."
Cranking off a few rounds at the sky on New Year's Eve or the Fourth of July may seem to some like an anonymous, victimless indiscretion. But even before a July 4 celebratory round killed a man in 1994 — the shooter never found — neighborhood councils and city leaders impotently urged revelers to drop their weapons.
In 2002, the Police Department distributed more than 7,000 fliers urging residents to "Have Fun, Don't Shoot Your Gun" on New Year's Eve. The department aired public service announcements on community television and offered rewards for tips leading to weapon confiscations.
Now police can do a bit more.
"In some cases we can tell which property a gunshot came from. In some cases we can tell what part of the property," said Sgt. Dave Harris, who supervises the department's use of the technology.
Last spring, Richmond became the first city in Contra Costa County, and the fifth in the Bay Area, to install ShotSpotter. The city paid about $1.3 million, including a $600,000 federal grant, for the technology.
The system of sensors picks out the sound of gunfire and triangulates its location on the city grid, accurate to within a few dozen yards. That means police often can tell if someone fired a gun in a backyard, or on a porch, or in the driveway of a home.
Police used the January data mainly to educate the public, but McBride anticipates ShotSpotter follow-up to become standard procedure for patrol officers in Richmond, where the department investigates hundreds of shootings each year.
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