Shotspotter Blog

ShotSpotter has two environmental initiatives which have shown great technical promise – protecting rhinos in Africa from poaching and locating fish bomb blasts in the tropics. The poaching initiative will be discussed in another blog while protecting tropical reefs and communities from Blast Fishing is discussed here. Blast Fishing, scarcely known in Europe and North […]

We are proud to announce the release of our latest user application, ShotSpotter Respond. We listened to you and have added some new great features while maintaining the previous ones that you loved and used frequently. ShotSpotter Respond is still available on a mobile device, desktop or browser. ShotSpotter Respond is aptly named as it […]

This is the time of year when many of us make our New Year's resolutions – hoping once again to live our best lives in the coming year.  We commit to losing 10 pounds, drinking more water, eating healthier fare or turning off that mobile phone when we go to bed.  While it is important […]

As New Year’s Eve is fast approaching, our ShotSpotter Incident Review Center (IRC) team is busy prepping for one of the busiest nights (and weekend) of the year. Illegal celebratory gunfire happens in many cities across the country and the dangers of celebratory gunfire are real, and can be fatal. What goes up must come […]

This is an amazingly vibrant time of year at universities and colleges around the country – football games, concerts, parties – many of which take place outdoors and include very large groups of people. Although these events are typical on and near campuses, they pose an ever-increasing challenge for campus security in our current environment […]

Like many businesses and industries, law enforcement today is challenged with how to do more with less. We believe ShotSpotter can be a “force multiplier” and help law enforcement do more with less, especially in the proactive battle against gun violence. Departments that have deployed ShotSpotter are able to leverage its critical, real time gun […]

The ShotSpotter team is getting ready for an exciting IACP this year in Philadelphia. Be sure to stop by our booth #1113, meet the team and find out what’s new. Demo ShotSpotter gunfire alerts on your phone Have you tried our ShotSpotter app on your mobile phone yet? We’ll be actively sharing a trial of […]

Is your community prepared for illegal celebratory gunfire this year on July 4th?  Gunfire peaks on July 4th and is traditionally one of the busiest nights of the year for illegal “celebratory” gunfire. Unfortunately, many innocent residents have been wounded or killed in the U.S. due to celebratory shooting. ShotSpotter agency customers have revealed that […]

After reading MoneyBall a few years ago, I was forced to watch the movie the other night with my wife Rebecca (after all, it stars Brad Pitt!).  MoneyBall is the story of Billy Beane, who  challenged the conventional wisdom about what constitutes a player’s value and what it takes to win baseball games.  Beane faced […]

ShotSpotter has released the 2016 National Gunfire Index (NGI), an analysis based on gunfire data aggregated from 72 cities across the U.S. (including Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands). The number of gunfire incidents has increased year over year — In 2016, ShotSpotter published nearly 75,000 gunfire incidents in U.S. cities compared to 54,699 […]

The ShotSpotter team is gearing up for another great ISC West show in Las Vegas. Please join us to demo our New Active Shooter Alarm system, have some popcorn, and enter our raffle for a chance to win a FitBit Alta. We will also learn some exciting news at our company. Integrator News: Genetec has […]

There is an emerging and seemingly contradictory vision being articulated by critical thinkers focused on gun violence prevention that put forward the idea that we can dramatically improve the safety of the citizens and police who live and work in America’s urban cities, while also protecting the Second Amendment rights for Americans to bear arms.  […]

The federal fiscal year began October 1, and while we’re still waiting for Congress to put their finishing touches on the fiscal year 2017 federal appropriations process, it isn’t too early to begin to focus on the key federal homeland security programs that frequently fund ShotSpotter coverage.  If you wait until allocations are released this […]

As law enforcement agencies increase staffing during the holiday season, ShotSpotter is also ramping up to be able to provide the best service to our customers.  July 4th and New Year’s Eve are consistently the busiest days in the office for the Service Operations Center (SOC) at ShotSpotter.  As many people ring in the New […]

For the second consecutive year, ShotSpotter was invited to participate at the 3-day Smart City Expo World Congress in Barcelona, Spain.  As the name might suggest, it is a massive collection of technology companies and city officials convening to share and showcase ideas about how best to make cities, and ultimately our world, a smarter […]

The term “gun violence” conjures up images of homicide scenes or gunshot victims, in most people’s minds.   All police departments record homicides and shootings as they fall under the seven ‘Part 1 crimes’ as outlined by the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting program. These crimes only make up a small section of actual gun violence in […]

We are pleased to announce the launch of our new ShotSpotter Mobile™ app designed to extend ShotSpotter Flex alerts to a new native browser user-interface and native mobile iOS and Android platforms. With the new mobile app, more law enforcement users will have access to the valuable ShotSpotter service beyond the dispatch office or squad […]

The ShotSpotter team is gearing up for a great IACP conference this year. We have some exciting new things to share with you, so stop by our booth to check out what’s new. When you step inside the ShotSpotter booth, don’t be surprised when you see a real-life GE Current Street light towering above your […]

Did you know that there are more than 1,000 grant programs, which are administered by 26 federal agencies, and provide more than $400 billion to state and local governments?  When it comes to funding for ShotSpotter, there are many sources of funding that can be leveraged.  If your agency is looking at federal funding, note […]

One of the first and most prominent things people see when they open the web page for the Canton, Ohio police department is a bold, capitalized link to click for information on a gunshot detection system used by the department to help combat crime.  Chief Bruce Lawver, now in his fourth year, wants to make […]

Of the many unintended consequences of war and possibly the most serious is the traumatic stress and its resultant mental health impact on troops reentering society. Generally understood as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or its acronym, PTSD, the words can conjure up the image of battle damaged soldiers, who are easily startled, unable to forget […]

The recent news this week has been tragic and as a company, we are grieving over what has occurred in Dallas, TX. Our thoughts and prayers are with the officers killed and injured, their families, and the other members of the Dallas Police Department. No words can properly describe the profound feelings of shock; sadness […]

As we head out to the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators (IACLEA) annual conference in Phoenix, Arizona, I can’t help but think that we are at a critical time for educational institutions in the U.S. to elevate campus safety initiatives. It’s time to stand tall as educators to become even better leaders when […]

Lieutenant Ryan Hepler of Rocky Mount Police Department joined us on our Tuesday webinar and shared his agencies best practices to reduce gunfire. Lt. Hepler knows first-hand what it’s like to have celebratory gunfire numbers decrease. Over the past few years, he’s watched his illegal celebratory numbers decline and he’s proud of it. In 2014, […]

In the last months, many communities throughout the United States have seen an uptick in gun violence.  Criminologists and crime researchers are struggling to understand the cause for the increase.  For law enforcement agencies, the increase in gun violence not only carries a heavy socio-economic toll on the communities most impacted, but it also carries […]

When reporter Mitch Ohnstad asked the famous bank robber Willie Sutton why he robbed banks, his answer was beautifully simple, “Because that is where the money is”.  Willie Sutton understood the concept of operating leverage – focusing effort and resources where there is the opportunity for big returns.  When we think about gaining measurable reductions […]

I am excited to announce that SST, Inc. is now an official Corporate Partner of the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators (IACLEA) organization.  This is a significant partnership and we are thrilled to be associated with the leading voice for the campus safety community, in our efforts to reduce gun violence on university […]

The ShotSpotter team is gearing up for a great ISC West 2016 presence this year.  We’ll have exciting demonstrations of our indoor/outdoor ShotSpotter ™SiteSecure and SST ™ SecureCampus active shooter alarm solutions available for you and your clients. As always, we will have plenty of experts on hand to talk about how ShotSpotter works and […]

Illegal and reckless gunfire plagues far too many neighborhoods around the United States, and with over 300 million guns in circulation, the idea that we can quickly diminish accessibility through police action is a fantasy – so what can be done? ShotSpotter Flex coupled with tested law enforcement strategies has proven to be a useful […]

As the global leader in gunfire detection, SST Inc. has unique insights into the nature and cadence of gunshot data.  Our annual National Gunfire Index detected and analyzed a staggering 54,699 gunshot incidents for 2015.    Our National Gunfire Index delivers objective urban gunfire incident data that clearly demonstrates that gun violence in the U.S. is […]

ShotSpotter hosted a live webinar last week where Captain Chris Hsiung from Mountain View Police Department invited his attendees to look at social media from a law enforcement perspective – giving high level insight into how to engage your community to improve relationships, solve crimes and elevate the human element of policing. The content in […]

New Year’s Eve is right around the corner and this is an exciting time for many people. As we ring in and welcome 2016, it’s important to understand the reality of illegal celebratory gunfire. Almost 15% of all gunfire incidents take place around New Year’s Eve, New Year’s Day and the 4th of July. The […]

Technology based products don’t age gracefully. Something breaks and it isn’t completely fixed. A feature gets added that impacts overall product performance. The architecture starts to constrain what features can be added. A capability the product implemented is now provided for free by the operating system. Engineering teams continually redo working code to fix some […]

The ShotSpotter team is gearing up for a great IACP 2015 presence this year. We’ll have demos on both ShotSpotter Flex and our ShotSpotter ™SiteSecure and SST ™ SecureCampus solutions and plenty of experts on hand to talk about how ShotSpotter is helping police agencies reduce gun violence in many cities. If you’re attending, be […]

There are two types of cities today: first, those that leverage cutting edge technology to enhance the performance of its public servants; and second, cities that simply hire more public servants with limited success to drive enhanced performance. You could say that efforts to prevent gun violence are impacted similarly by these same choices — […]

In May of 2015, SST launched an online Customer Satisfaction Survey to get key feedback from our current ShotSpotter customers. The survey was based on the NetPromoter (NPS) score which is measured by the likelihood that your product will be recommended. The objective of the survey was to prioritize improvement opportunities and identify our ShotSpotter […]

As a veteran tech entrepreneur, when I joined ShotSpotter over four years ago, I was both intrigued and surprised by a company that had developed truly groundbreaking technology for its segment, had a marquee list of early customers, but appeared to be stalled at the gate.  It was clear ShotSpotter had the potential to redefine […]

In the United States gun crime is a widespread public safety challenge affecting over 2,000 cities of various size in every region of the country.  More than 11,000 homicides are committed with a firearm annually, that’s over 30 murders every day . An additional 75,000 non-fatal injuries result from unlawful shootings every year. Law enforcement […]

Lessons from Newark Memorial High School – The 3 Important Steps They Took A New Standard of Safety for Schools On June 18, Newark Memorial High School (NMHS), a sprawling 44-acre campus in Northern California, announced that they were the first high school in the country to use gun detection software.  This was an important […]

The dangers of celebratory gunfire are well known, yet there are certain times of the year that law enforcement agencies know there will be an increase in this type of activity.  Every agency experiences celebratory gunfire on July 4th and on New Year’s Eve/Day.  Some agencies experience celebratory gunfire associated with other holidays like Cinco […]

Last week Mayor Bill De Blasio released his $78+ billion budget for New York City that included some modest investments in technology for NYPD. A few media outlets, in search of a dramatic storyline, immediately decried, “De Blasio’s investing in technology instead of cops!” This ‘man versus machine’ narrative strikes me as a false “Sophie’s […]

The Seventh Summit of the Americas will be held on April 11th and 12th in Panama City.  This year´s theme is “Prosperity with Equity:  The Challenge of Cooperation in the Americas”. We all know the sad truth that both economic prosperity and societal equity are nearly impossible in cities plagued by illegal gunfire and other […]

On February 26, SST hosted Chief Ian Moffett, President-elect at National Association of School Safety and Law Enforcement Officials (NASSLEO) on a one hour webinar. Fortunately for us, Ian also happens to be Chief of Police for Miami-Dade K-12 schools, so he knows first-hand what it takes to keep school districts safe.  Our webinar attendees […]

Going to the mall is normally a fun activity, especially if you have some Christmas gift cards to use or a healthy tax refund to spend. It’s a place where teenagers hang out with friends or where families spend the day shopping, snacking and maybe taking in a quick movie. If you’re like me, it’s […]

Building Community Outreach – What Happens After a Gunshot? When a gunshot happens in a neighborhood, what happens next with the police and the community?  In most cases, when law enforcement agencies receive a confirmed gunfire alert, they make an effort to conduct a thorough area canvass for potential witnesses and evidence. This means going […]

President Obama recently convened a Taskforce on 21st Century Policing is proof positive that our nation is grappling with how police and communities can best work together to make our neighborhoods safer.  Now is the time to refocus police departments’ role as guardians of their communities. Take a look back to the father of modern […]

New Year’s Eve is a busy time at ShotSpotter; celebratory gunfire on holiday periods is a known concern for communities worldwide.  Advance planning to prepare for the large increase of activity at ShotSpotter is an intensive, cross-departmental effort that begins more than one month prior to the event and involves frequent, regular communication internally to […]

The thin veil of safety that many of us grew up with as children has been lifted to reveal the ugly truth: there are some bad people in the world and some of them aim to harm with guns.  What’s most disturbing isn’t that the world is different than we thought as children, it’s that […]

Each morning I read the weather report, if there is a chance of rain I throw an umbrella in my bag. Sometimes it rains as predicted and sometimes it doesn’t, but in any event I rarely get wet. Weather forecasting is a form of predictive intelligence that in severe circumstances such as tornados and hurricanes […]

Five Tips to Prevent Illegal Celebratory Gunfire in Your City Even though New Year’s Eve is a time of celebration, it’s also a very serious time when it comes to potential fatalities due to celebratory gunfire*.  The holidays are upon us – and now is a perfect time to prepare your local law enforcement teams […]

At ShotSpotter, we think about gunfire all day, every day.   On December 1, CNN released its report, “GunsProject,”, which took a look at guns in America:  “the lives they save, the lives they take and the lives they define”. We applaud CNN for tackling an issue so critical to our society, and for taking […]

Imagine if psychologist Abraham Maslow was a Mayor in America today.  What would he have to say about setting priorities in his city?  How would he face the competing challenges for scarce resources as he set priorities for progress? For many casual college students like myself, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and the pyramid that visualized […]

IACP supports the law enforcement leaders of today and develops police leaders of tomorrow.  If you’re in Orlando this week, stop by booth #2415 and see our latest new products like SiteSecure and SecureCampus. We will also be showing our Flex product. If you are familiar with ShotSpotter, you already know that we are the […]

SST has just released our National Gunfire Index which revealed that gunfire incidents during the first half of 2014 were down by 20.6 percent, compared to first half of 2013, in the 31 cities across the U.S. where ShotSpotter was deployed during both periods.  Our gunfire index summarizes gunfire data for the first half of […]

ShotSpotter offers three different map views. Using the correct map view will help to determine the most tactically sound approach, and locate suspects, victims, witnesses and evidence. In this post, we will explain the unique advantages of each view and when you might prefer to use one over the other two. The ShotSpotter Flex Alert […]

The first few minutes of an active shooter scenario on a campus or university are critical for first responders in any community.  When an active shooter is present on a campus, there are a number of key people who need to be immediately notified with accurate information to provide help quickly.  Despite the chaos during […]

Frequently I’m asked if ShotSpotter prevents gun violence.  The answer to this question is yes, in the same way smoke detectors help prevent the spread of fire.  Just as firefighters understand that where there’s smoke there’s fire, police officers know as shootings increase, time is short before someone gets shot. Unlawfully discharging a weapon is […]

The makers of ShotSpotter Flex™, SST  Inc. is proud to announce the extension of our proven gunshot detection technology and service offerings with the launch of a new product called ShotSpotter SiteSecure.  The product is now available for purchase;  if you’re at all concerned about the physical security of your facility, you should contact SST […]

Most people think of urban gunfire as a thing that happens at night, in the rough parts of town. We know differently.  Just released today, the Urban Institute analyzed and mapped gunfire findings of ShotSpotter data near DC schools, (http://datatools.urban.org/features/everydayviolence/) and, in the process, uncovered some startling statistics about daytime gunfire near schools. ShotSpotter picked […]

The science and technology of Gunfire detection has existed for nearly two decades.  The basic technology is designed to detect the acoustic event (sound) created when a gun is fired.  This is no easy feat as there are only two possible types of sounds that are created when a gun is fired. One is the […]

The science and mathematics of acoustic gunshot detection is the cornerstone of our company's foundation. The three original founders of SST, Inc. are scientists who hold PhDs or Masters degrees from UC Berkeley, MIT, or Stanford. SST holds the deepest patent portfolio in the industry, the result of a decade and a half of innovation […]

Since the 1980’s there has been an effective partnership between law enforcement, advocates and legislators credited with saving over 300,000 lives that would have been lost to the crime of drunk driving.  So when considering the epidemic of gun violence, it is fair to ask why similar efforts have failed. Although it is clear that […]

State-of-the-art cloud-based information services require both robust infrastructure and real-time monitoring software that allows resources to be directed toward the needs of the moment and emergent issues to receive timely attention from the technical support staff.  ShotSpotter’s  cloud-based gunfire location and alerting systems have these needs and additional challenges that arise from the unique nature […]

For people all across the U.S., the 4th of July is a day for celebrating the birth of our nation and the independence and freedoms we, as Americans, enjoy to this day. Here at SST, we enjoy and celebrate this important day in our history as much as anyone. It is also, however, a work […]

The United States is currently experiencing a wave of Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) cyber attacks from overseas to a number of US sites and service providers. The countries of origin include China, Russia, Thailand, and parts of Eastern Europe. SST and ShotSpotter services, along with many other cloud-based services, have been affected. Over the […]

SST, Inc., the global leader in gunfire detection, location, alerting and analysis, will host a webinar for law enforcement professionals on Tuesday, June 24 at 10.30 AM PST. ‘Celebratory Gunfire Reduction Strategies’ will explore how to combat celebratory gunfire during the fourth of July holiday weekend and other peak shooting periods. Celebratory gunfire is a […]

Aggregation and analysis of more than 51,000 gunshot incidents across the U.S. I want to welcome you to the new SST Blog. As our first entry, I am proud to announce SST’s 2013 National Gunfire Index. As the global leader in gunfire detection, location, alerting and analysis, we are in a unique position to aggregate […]