Powerful New API and Notification Software Makes Alerts from World’s Leading Gunfire Detection Technology Instantly Available, Interoperable, and Ubiquitous

Newark, CA (December 12, 2012) – SST, Inc., the world leader in wide-area acoustic surveillance and gunfire location, alert and analysis technology, today announced the release of Version 2.6 of the ShotSpotter Notification API and Notification Engine software, compatible with both ShotSpotter Flex℠, its industry-leading gunfire alert and analysis solution and ShotSpotter OnSite™, the company’s capital equipment solution for customers outside North America. ShotSpotter Flex continues to gain increasing market adoption by North American law enforcement agencies and cities in their integrated efforts to combat gun violence using proactive, intelligence-led policing in collaboration with community initiatives.   This version of the Notification API delivers on SST’s commitment to making ShotSpotter easily accessible to external systems such as video surveillance (CCTV) systems.

New upgrades to the ShotSpotter Notification API are significant:

  • The upgrades permit client applications such as video management systems, Computer-Aided Dispatch (CAD), Records Management Systems (RMS), video analytics, automated license plate number readers (ALPR), camera management systems, crime analysis and statistics packages (including COMPSTAT software), and common operating picture (COP) software to receive accurate, timely, and detailed information about ShotSpotter gunfire alerts, including precise latitude and longitude (geolocation), GPS-synchronized timestamps, incident audio, and situational context provided by the 24x7x365 SST Incident Review Center™.
  • This version of the Notification API is the first in the industry to enable subscribers to receive updates about gunfire alerts throughout a multi-stage, possibly multi-site incident review process, thus permitting sophisticated, responses involving multiple resources to be coordinated in near real-time.
  • The release delivers new functionality critical to technically-focused security and systems integrators through its support of fourteen (14) different notification packet types, each available in as XML, query string, or pure ASCII stream format, via HTTP, TCP/IP socket connection, directly to a Google Earth overlay, or to a custom-developed plug-in. 
  • Version 2.6 can calculate the direction, range, and elevation angle from many different points of view towards a single gunfire incident and transmits appropriately-calculated pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) slewing (aiming) data to each respective endpoint.
  • The release supports the industry’s first variable content multi-media notification scheme, which permits incident audio and other incident-specific information to be shared with systems subscribing to incidents. 
  • This new version also permits customers to specify two different levels of geospatial boundaries (or “geofences”) which permit incidents to be grouped and reported, for example, by patrol beats or command districts.

“No data are valuable in a silo.  The long term and greater value of ShotSpotter data comes in integrating it with other information sources and data streams” said James G. Beldock, Senior Vice President, Products & Marketing. “Forward-thinking cities rely on ShotSpotter data as well as other systems, such as video surveillance or parolee GPS ankle bracelet tracking technology.  This release of the ShotSpotter Notification API permits tight integration between our technology and those other systems.  By freeing ShotSpotter data from one silo and making it available to authorized subscribers throughout the city’s infrastructure, our data can help define police and community focus on areas where any one of the city’s data-driven technologies identifies a potential problem.”

Integration of ShotSpotter data with other systems has already proven successful in cities across the United States.  Police in Minneapolis, MN used an earlier version of the ShotSpotter Notification Engine to trigger video recordings of certain key intersections in high crime areas.  Soon thereafter, a ShotSpotter alert triggered those cameras to capture the image of a murderer fleeing the scene of a shooting.  Similarly, in Boston, MA, police correlate ShotSpotter data with surveillance cameras and parolee ankle bracelet tracking data to maintain 24x7x365 awareness of any parolee who may be violating the terms of parole by committing crimes or consorting with those doing likewise.

Since 2011, SST has delivered ShotSpotter Flex in a hosted, subscription-based service, making it easily deployable and affordable, without extensive up-front costs, IT resources and procurement friction of a traditional technology or software acquisition. The service also includes SST’s Reviewed Alerts Service which provides immediate review and qualification of all gunfire incidents by SST-trained gunshot and acoustic experts.

About SST, Inc.
SST, Inc. is the world leader in gunshot detection, and its ShotSpotter solutions are the leading gunfire alert and analysis solutions. Its public safety technology solutions are focused on improving public and community safety by locating gunfire and other explosive events, and ultimately, helping reduce and prevent gun violence and improving intelligence-led policing and community policing initiatives. SST solutions protect cities and countries around the world, with more than 80 installations in four countries and in more than 70 US cities. Privately held, the company possesses a multitude of patents that are the result of nearly two decades of innovation in the area of acoustic gunshot location technology. Information about SST and ShotSpotter can be found at www.sst-inc.com or www.shotspotter.com. You can also follow SST and ShotSpotter solutions on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube.

Media Contacts:

Lydia Barrett
Vice President, Communications
SST, Inc.
Cell: 650-833-9534
lbarrett@shotspotter.com