It seems that ShotSpotter, the gunshot detection technology company, has recently been on the receiving end of some shots questioning the reliability and equity of its product. That’s moved the firm’s CEO to fire back at those politicians who want a federal probe of the company, suggesting they were spreading “numerous recycled falsehoods and misleading assertions.” The head of SoundThinking, the renamed California-based company formed in 1996, wrote a letter this week to U.
S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Ed Markey and Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley in response to the legislators’ letter to the Department of Homeland Security seeking to open an investigation into DHS grant funding of the ShotSpotter system.
In the letter SoundThinking CEO Ralph Clark emphasizes that the senators and rep were misinformed by inaccurate and debunked claims about the acoustic gunshot detection tool. Clark throughout the letter stressed the technology “helps save lives.” And apparently, several of the state’s largest police departments agree.
According to a GBH report, the technology company counts Boston, Cambridge, Somerville, Chelsea, Everett, Revere, Pittsfield, Worcester, Lawrence, Brockton, New Bedford, Holyoke, Springfield and Northeastern University among its clients. The company said more than 160 police departments nationwide use this technology, ranging from major metropolitan cities such as Chicago, New York City, Denver, and Oakland to smaller cities with populations less th.
