Sunsetting ShotSpotter

Could 2025 be the last year for ShotSpotter in Cleveland? The city used about $2.75 million of American Rescue Plan Act money to expand ShotSpotter – an automatic gunshot-detection product from SoundThinking – in 2022. The contract ends after next year, and an extension at that time is no sure thing, according to Cleveland City Council Safety Committee Chair Michael Polensek. 

During the meeting, council members and police officials discussed the pros and cons of the technology, which Cleveland began piloting in the Fourth Police District in November 2020.

Newly appointed Interim Safety Director Wayne Drummond and Chief of Police Dorothy Todd said that ShotSpotter works and is a good investigative tool.

Throughout the meeting, police officials credited ShotSpotter alerts with saving 37 lives since 2020 through quicker response times and therefore faster administration of medical aid. Some council members weren’t as convinced that those numbers could be attributed solely to ShotSpotter and not another alert.

“It’s impossible for us to draw a direct line between that ShotSpotter alert and a life saved,” said Council Member Kris Harsh, who represents Ward 13.

Two of the three public commenters spoke out against the use of ShotSpotter. 

Abdul Nasser Rad traveled from Brooklyn, New York, as a representative from Campaign Zero, an American police reform campaign launched in 2015. Other cities such as Chicago and Durham, North Carolina, are ending their contracts with ShotSpotter, according to Rad, who is the managing director of research and data for the campaign.

LaTonya Goldsby, president of Black Lives Matter Cleveland, said ShotSpotter doesn’t keep residents safe from gun violence and the data that law enforcement shares is inaccurate. She also said that technology like ShotSpotter is used to increase surveillance of Black communities.

Free smoke and carbon monoxide detectors in Cleveland

Together, the Cleveland Division of Fire and the American Red Cross provide and install free smoke and carbon monoxide detectors for residents. 

The city proposed legislation to continue that work using a nearly $78,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The grant is expected to make 1,000 smoke detectors and 1,000 combined smoke/carbon monoxide detectors available to residents, according to Assistant Fire Chief Brad Englehart. Smoke detectors cost roughly $24 each and combined detectors cost about $46 each.

The legislation awaits council’s final approval. Council plans to look into additional funding sources for this work, according to Polensek.

If you are a Cuyahoga County resident, you can request your free smoke detector by calling 216-361-5535.

For more information, visit the Red Cross website or email John Gareis at [email protected].

Felonious dumping

The committee also discussed Illegal dumping in Cleveland, which Polensek said “is a constant issue.” By law, open dumping or recklessly burning of garbage, debris, solid waste and scrap tires is a felony and punishable by jail and fines.

The Cleveland-Cuyahoga Environmental Crimes Task Force (ETF) plans to buy high-tech cameras and license plate readers to help with enforcement, according to supervisor Sergeant Matthew West.

“If you dump in the City of Cleveland, you need to get hammered. And I don’t care who you are,” said Polensek.

“If you see something, you gotta say something,” said West. He encouraged anyone who witnesses illegal dumping to call 911 or 311. 

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