Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting: ShotSpotter tells Louisville police about gunshots, but officers rarely look for evidence

Christina Wilcox hears the blast of gunfire echo through her Shawnee neighborhood a few times a week.

She’s learned to quickly assess the threat: Are her kids safe? Doors locked? Should she drop to the ground?

Not a consideration: calling the police.

“I don’t do nothing wrong and I’m going to keep it like that,” she said. “I don’t want them coming to my door and someone down the street sees and thinks I’m saying something.”

This unwillingness to alert police to shootings is not uncommon, and police know it. That’s why in 2017 the Louisville Metro Police Department installed ShotSpotter, an array of microphones across six square miles of the city designed to listen for gunfire and automatically notify officers.

But a Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting analysis of police data shows the system provides no guarantee police will stay on the scene very long — or actually investigate.

Officers conduct required surveys of the area on fewer than two out of every 10 ShotSpotter calls, according to data from the police department and the city’s MetroSafe 911 service. The calls rarely lead to an arrest.

The officers typically clear scenes within minutes, and they seldom find evidence of a shooting, according to police data.

As Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer looks to free up $35 million to pay for the city’s growing pension obligation, he is threatening to get rid of ShotSpotter. The service costs $390,000 for technical assistance, system maintenance and data storage, according to the city’s contract with the San Francisco-based company. To date, the city has paid more than $1.2 million for the service.

Louisville Metro Police Chief Steve Conrad said recently that, combined with other proposed police cuts, losing ShotSpotter would cause “bleeding” and contribute to a “slow train wreck” for public safety in Louisville.

LMPD spokesperson Jessie Halladay said the arrests ShotSpotter brings are a crime deterrent and a lot of the gunshots it alerts police to aren’t reported. She speculated that more officers probably do surveys than the data shows, but they forget to report them.

But some experts question whether the lack of tangible benefits make the service worth the cost…