TACOMA, Washington. – Tacoma Police plan to roll out the controversial ShotSpotter technology this fall and will hold a town hall meeting next week to announce details of the rollout.

According to the City of Tacoma, the use of ShotSpotter as part of Police Chief Avery Moore’s violent crime reduction plan is intended to curb gun violence. ShotSpotter technology uses microphones to detect the sound of gunshots, then triangulates the exact locations of the incident and notifies police. The technology uses AI to rule out other sounds, such as backfires, and a human employee then decides whether to dispatch an officer to the scene.

City officials argue that the real-time alerts allow officers to “quickly arrive on the scene, identify and assist victims, interview witnesses, collect crucial evidence, and, in some cases, arrest armed and dangerous offenders.”

However, there is also criticism of the technology, which says that it increases surveillance of civilians in cities but does little to increase public security. Some cities that have previously used this technology have therefore had to abandon it, such as Chicago.

The ACLU of Washington says the technology has no place in the state. They told FOX 13 Seattle in April:

“Automated gun detection systems like ShotSpotter do not reduce gun violence, but instead fuel racial inequality in policing and disproportionately harm Black and brown communities. Through an extensive network of microphones placed in residential areas, this surveillance technology also poses risks to people’s privacy and civil liberties and can limit free speech and prevent free association. Cities in Washington should not line up to serve as a beta test for a technology that has already been rejected by other cities like Chicago for being ineffective, dangerous, and an expensive waste of public money.”

“The equipment detects gunshots, and gunshots have no ethnicity. So it will be based on the evidence that my entire crime plan is based on,” Moore responded at the time. “I am aware of the harm from a police perspective and from a community perspective, and it looks like if this equipment does that, it’s not going to be here.”

As expected, ShotSpotter will initially be rolled out only in the Hosmer area, which has become a notoriously high-crime area in the city. Prior to the ShotSpotter discussions, Chief Moore directed officers to conduct frequent “hotspot” patrols in areas like South Hosmer Street in 2022, which Moore said resulted in a 30% decrease in crime.

The Tacoma Police Department is hosting a town hall meeting to discuss the details of the ShotSpotter deployment. The meeting will be held on Wednesday, August 21 and Thursday, August 22 beginning at 6:00 p.m. at the Tacoma Police Department’s 4 Sector Substation, located at 400 E 56th St.

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