Newest Addition to Company’s Investigative Portfolio Brings Automation and a More Efficient Approach to the Investigative Process for Gun Crime
FREMONT, Calif., June 6, 2022 — ShotSpotter, Inc. (Nasdaq: SSTI), a leader in precision policing technology solutions that enable law enforcement to more effectively respond to, investigate and deter crime, today announced ShotSpotter GCM™ (Gun Crime Management), a first-of-its-kind digital case management solution that focuses specifically on gun crime. The new solution automates the process by which key information is inputted, captured and used to identify associated gun crime cases leading to the identification of persons of interest. The system supports streamlined collaboration and generation of operational insights that we believe enables detectives and investigative supervisors to solve gun crime more efficiently and effectively. ShotSpotter GCM is now available for sale and adds to the company’s investigative tools portfolio, which also includes ShotSpotter Investigate™ and COPLINK X™.
According to the Gun Violence Archives, firearm homicides increased nearly 35% from 2019 to 2021, while the clearance rate for homicides from 2019 to 2020 dropped from 61% to 54% as reported by the Pew Research Center. Around the same time, an increasing number of departments began facing chronic personnel shortages, causing more gun crime cases to become backlogged. To assist law enforcement in their efforts to solve gun crime, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) oversees the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network (NIBIN), a national database of ballistics evaluations. NIBIN leads are delivered to agencies in PDF format and commonly input manually into disparate applications such as Excel or Word documents where they remain siloed. This makes it difficult to broadly share leads and effectively mine the information, limiting collaboration across investigative units, lengthening investigations and ultimately harming closure rates.
In accordance with ATF’s Crime Gun Intelligence (CGI) principles, ShotSpotter GCM establishes a best practices-based digital workflow process that acts as a force multiplier, enabling investigative units to be more efficient and effective in gun crime investigations. GCM streamlines the timely entry of new ballistics collections by automating the input of NIBIN leads and powerful visual link analysis tools that match the data to quickly identify associated gun crime cases, including where and when a firearm was previously used. This ensure investigators are able to focus their time on the CGI principles that are the most rigorous: investigative follow-up and feedback. At an agency-wide level, GCM reduces information silos and streamlines collaboration between internal and external stakeholders, who can now easily share and track cases, produce reports and analyze data to drive operational insights—all of which are critical to helping solve gun crime and improve closure rates.
“Addressing gun crime requires systematic, organized and focused investigative effort,” said Thomas Chittum, Esq., Vice President, Analytics and Forensic Services for ShotSpotter and former Associate Deputy Director at the ATF. “Putting a tool like ShotSpotter Gun Crime Management in the hands of our nation’s criminal investigators will make them more efficient and effective at what they do. That will lead to more solved cases, more prosecutable arrests and more serial offenders off the streets.”
“The unfortunate reality is that violent crime continues to rise, while law enforcement leaders are struggling to fully staff their agencies,” said Ralph A. Clark, President and CEO of ShotSpotter. “ShotSpotter Gun Crime Management is the right tool at the right time to bring automation to the investigative process. I believe we can improve solvability, help agencies get more serial offenders off the street and ultimately deliver justice to gun crime victims and their families.”
ShotSpotter GCM works as a standalone solution or in conjunction with ShotSpotter Respond™, the company’s gunshot detection solution. For more information visit ShotSpotter.com.
Safe Harbor Statement
This press release contains “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the “safe harbor” provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including but not limited to statements regarding our belief that ShotSpotter GCM™ will be able to solve gun crime more efficiently and effectively, and lead to more solved cases, more prosecutable arrests and more serial offenders off the streets. Words such as “expect,” “anticipate,” “should,” “believe,” “target,” “project,” “goals,” “estimate,” “potential,” “predict,” “may,” “will,” “could,” “intend,” variations of these terms or the negative of these terms and similar expressions are intended to identify these forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, many of which involve factors or circumstances that are beyond the company’s control. Actual results could differ materially from those stated or implied in forward-looking statements due to a number of factors, including but not limited to customer and market acceptance and use of ShotSpotter GCM™ and achieving its intended benefits to streamline collaboration between investigators, as well as other risk factors included in the company’s most recent annual report on Form 10-K and other SEC filings. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this press release and are based on current expectations, estimates, forecasts and projections as well as the beliefs and assumptions of management. Except as required by law, the company undertakes no duty or obligation to update any forward-looking statements contained in this release as a result of new information, future events or changes in its expectations.
About ShotSpotter
ShotSpotter Inc. (Nasdaq: SSTI) brings the power of digital transformation to law enforcement. We are trusted by more than 200 customers and 2,500 agencies to drive more efficient, effective, and equitable public safety outcomes and help make communities safer and healthier. We are a leader in precision policing technology solutions and our platform includes the flagship product, ShotSpotter Respond™, the leading gunshot detection and alerting system; investigative tools that immediately generate leads and streamline case management to accelerate crime solving and improve clearance rates; and patrol management software that dynamically directs patrol resources to areas of greater risk to more effectively deter crime. ShotSpotter has been designated a Great Place to Work® Company.