Durham to start listening for gunshots. Here’s where the city’s putting the sensors.

Staring next month, when someone fires a gun in East or Southeast Durham, someone — or something — will be listening.

The city is installing audio sensors during September from ShotSpotter. The California company has sold gunshot surveillance systems to over 120 cities in the last 25 years.

The sensors will cover three square miles, or about 2.7% of the city, south of East Geer Street and split by the Durham Freeway.

The area borders but does not include the N.C. Central University and Durham Technical Community College campuses. It includes the McDougald Terrace housing community and the Fayette Place area in the historic Hayti district that the Durham Housing Authority intends to redevelop.

“Gunfire in and around the community is a constant complaint,” DHA spokesperson Aalayah Sanders wrote in an email to The News & Observer.

“I consistently ask was it reported to the police, and the response is often, no,” she said. “The primary reason given is that by the time the police arrived the gunfire has stopped and they cannot identify where the gunfire came from.”

Some parts of the surveillance area are already being watched. “DHA has some cameras at some communities,” Sanders wrote. A 2020 agreement with the city references the McDougald Terrace, Hoover Road and Damar Court communities.

Alexis Cox, who lives in the coverage area, heard ShotSpotter was coming through word of mouth.

“Everybody knows about it,” said Cox, a mother of two. “It’s public already.”

Residents interviewed support new crime-fighting programs. They weren’t sure Shotspotter should be one of them.

Setting up ShotSpotter

ShotSpotter uses acoustic sensors to detect likely gunshots.

Each sensor has a range of 25 to 50 feet, and 20 to 25 sensors are placed per square mile, The N&O previously reported.

One shot can set off two to 30 sensors, which pinpoint the noise and determine whether it could be gunfire.

If sensors classify a sound as gunfire, employees review the sound. If they agree, the system will alert Durham’s 911 call center and Durham police officers’ laptops. The process takes 30 to 60 seconds.

The coverage area is where the most gunfire in Durham was reported from 2019 to 2021, including nearly 34% of reports of someone being shot, according to the city’s ShotSpotter information page.

Quintino Brooks, 34, thinks the sensors could help in shootings that would otherwise go unreported.

“People can know what’s going on ... that [police] don’t even got no evidence of,” said Brooks, who lives in the southeastern section of the coverage area.

As of Aug. 6, Durham police had investigated 453 shooting incidents this year, with 140 people shot, 23 of them fatally, according to the Police Department’s website.

A controversial program

Adilene Alanis, 18, a Riverside High School graduate, supports using Shotspotter to dispatch ambulances to possible shootings, “in case people get hurt.”

She’s skeptical about sending police officers.

Her sister Leslie Alanis, 23, a recent UNC graduate, worries that officers responding to an alert could put bystanders at risk, particularly gun owners.

“If a civilian simply happens to be carrying a gun, and they have all the legal permits, it is a little concerning that the police can come get that person and perhaps put them in danger,” she said.

Durham, mostly at current Mayor Pro Tem Mark-Anthony Middleton’s urging, has talked about Shotspotter since 2015. The 2022-23 city budget includes $197,500 for a one-year trial.

Middleton worries residents in high-crime neighborhoods can get used to living with frequent gunfire and not call it in, The N&O reported in June.

Cox, 37, lived in Durham’s Few Gardens housing project before it was torn down in 2003 and said gun violence was an everyday occurrence.

“That was all we had around there,” Cox said. “I’ve stayed in other areas of Durham where there was a lot of shooting as well. My brother has gotten shot before.”

Now, she hopes ShotSpotter will make it feel safer for her children, ages 5 and 6, to play outside.

“Maybe they can catch some more of the shootings and the things going on that’s not good for the kids and for the neighborhood,” she said.

City Council members Jillian Johnson and Javiera Caballero voted against the pilot program.

Johnston has said sending officers to respond to sensors could lead to excessive policing and unconstitutional stop and frisk searches in communities of color, The N&O previously reported.

At a community forum in June, however, Middleton argued that ShotSpotter could discourage racially motivated 911 calls, since the technology does not use cameras.

Does ShotSpotter work?

An Associated Press investigation published in March found ShotSpotter sensors have misclassified fireworks and backfiring cars as gunshots.

The A.P. also found ShotSpotter employees have altered sensor records to change the location or number of shots fired, at the request of their client police departments. The modified records have then been submitted as evidence in court to make claims about shots fired by defendants.

ShotSpotter sensors have already been installed in Wake Forest, Winston-Salem and Greenville.

In Greenville, reports of gunshots have decreased since implementing ShotSpotter, The N&O reported. Meanwhile, Charlotte shut down its ShotSpotter program in 2016, though the sensors could come back.

At the time, the city cited lack of impact. ShotSpotter CEO Ralph Clark told The Charlotte Observer in 2016 that the technology was placed in an area that already had a low crime rate and so wasn’t used as intended.

“The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department is currently talking with ShotSpotter representatives to determine the impact of re-introducing the technology in our community,” department spokesperson Amanda Aycock told The N&O in an email.

Durham Police Chief Patrice Andrews declined to comment for this story, as did Durham Mayor Elaine O’Neal.

If the sensors do reduce shootings, Cox hopes her neighbors will feel safer in parks and other outdoor areas.

“Less violence, more activities for the community,” Cox said.

To Leslie Alanis, increased police response doesn’t necessarily guarantee a safer Durham.

“We regularly hear gunshots from my house,” she said. “We regularly hear police cars from my house. Neither make me feel safe. So honestly, they cancel each other out.”

What’s next

ShotSpotter will go live in late September with senors on public buildings, streetlights and telephone poles.

This fall, police will partner with Duke University to study the program’s effectiveness. Findings will be published to a data dashboard posted on the city website.

The Durham Police Department will hold meetings to answer questions from community members, including Partners Against Crime groups.

The department also plans to meet with Durham Businesses Against Crime and residents of McDougald Terrace. Dates for these have not been announced yet.

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