DETROIT – The Detroit City Council narrowly approved a nine-month extension of the city’s ShotSpotter contract Tuesday, following emotional public comment and a debate over whether the gunshot-detection technology improves public safety or drains resources that could be used elsewhere.
The extension passed 5-4, continuing a contract costing more than $2 million.
Residents who opposed the system raised concerns about surveillance, privacy, and the impact on neighborhoods where the sensors are deployed.
“It targets black and brown communities, it violates privacy, and the sensors are unknown where they’re located,” one speaker said during public comment.
Supporters argued the system can help police identify possible gunfire and locate victims more quickly, especially in cases where no one calls 911.
LaKeisha Brooks said the technology helped save her 7-year-old son after the child was found shot multiple times in Detroit’s Brightmoor neighborhood last week.
Brooks said her 20-year-old nephew was killed in the same shooting, which police said happened in a mostly vacant area.
“Unfortunately, my nephew was killed, but if it wasn’t for the ShotSpotter, my 7-year-old son would be dead,” Brooks said.
Detroit police leadership has defended ShotSpotter, saying the alerts have helped officers locate victims, including in areas with few occupied homes, but some council members questioned whether the system delivers results that justify its cost.
Councilman Denzel Anton McCampbell of District 7 said the city needs clearer performance measures and pointed to department data he said shows arrests follow only 2% to 3% of ShotSpotter alerts.
“When the department’s own data shows that 911 calls are faster, that arrests only follow two to 3% of the alerts, that aid is rendered to victims that are less than 1% of the calls or cases that they get, and that we have no performance benchmarks that exist to either discontinue or wind down the program, that is alarming to me,” McCampbell said.
Community groups also argued that ShotSpotter data can help direct non-police intervention and support.
Zoe Kennedy, executive director of the community violence intervention group FORCE Detroit, said organizations can use the alerts to identify where gun violence is concentrated and tailor outreach.
Even in cases where shots are fired and there is no victim, Kennedy said the technology helps community organizations track where conflict is happening.
“If law enforcement shows up and nobody’s there, well, we know what went on over here, and we know something’s concentrated in this area, so we’re going to engage the community more over here,” Kennedy said. “We can concentrate our efforts where conflict is arising.”
FORCE Detroit works to prevent retaliatory violence and connect community members with resources after shootings, including mentorship, mental health support, and athletics programming for young people.
Kennedy said shootings can leave lasting trauma beyond the immediate victims.
“If something happened to this family and a lot of resources and a lot of support is there, but this community, this block, this residential area, also experienced that, that’s traumatic,” he said.
The nine-month extension keeps ShotSpotter services in place as the city works toward a longer-term solution.