Cleveland City Council appears skeptical of the usefulness of the gunshot detection technology ShotSpotter, four years after it first arrived in Cleveland.
At a safety committee meeting Wednesday, several members expressed doubt whether the city’s investment in the technology — $2.7 million in American Rescue Act money for a two-year contract — is worth renewing.
“The question is: Is it worth the amount of money that we’re paying for it? Are we receiving the benefits that the council was originally told we would be deriving from it?” Councilmember Mike Polensek, chair of the safety committee, asked Chief of Police Dorothy Todd and Interim Safety Director Wayne Drummond.
Both said it was.
“It is a part of our investigative package,” said Todd. “I would say yes at this time. We’ll continue to evaluate it, and if it becomes something where there's better technology that exists or it's not being used then we would look at it again.”
Drummond agreed with Todd, adding that they credit the ShotSpotter alerts with helping to save 37 lives since it first arrived in Cleveland in 2020.
“This is lives saved,” said Drummond. “They also administered first aid to other people as well because they responded rapidly based on the ShotSpotter alert, gunshot technology alert. For me that alone is worth the investment.”
Councilmembers questioned the role ShotSpotter actually played in saving those lives. Drummond said he could provide documentation of all 37 cases but could not say how many incidents also included a 911 call alerting police to the shooting.
“The fact that there was a ShotSpotter alert and life-saving medical service was given to somebody does not mean that the ShotSpotter alert saved the life,” said Councilmember Kris Harsh. “It's entirely possible that that life would have been saved through another alert, through a different way of knowing. It's impossible for us to draw a direct line between that ShotSpotter alert and a life saved.”
Drummond and Todd did not provide numbers of arrests, guns seized or shell casings collected as a result of ShotSpotter alerts.
An analysis by Ideastream Public Media of data provided by the department last year covering ShotSpotter alerts between Nov. 4, 2020 and July 25, 2022, found there were 56 arrests linked to more than 6,600 gunshot alerts. Of those only 42 resulted in criminal cases. And only 18 arrests were made for violent crimes.
Interim Deputy Chief Jarod Schlacht presented data to council covering the first two months of this year, for ShotSpotter’s expanded 13-square-mile coverage area. In just two months there’s been 2,056 ShotSpotter alerts.
Cleveland Police policy requires that an officer respond to every alert, said Drummond.
“So, are we counting rounds and statistics showing a statistical significance in our ability to seize firearms and prosecute?” asked Councilmember Charles Slife. “Or are we counting for the sake of counting? I'm still trying to unravel all that.”
The city has not come to council to ask for money to extend ShotSpotter’s contract, though Mayor Justin Bibb has supported the technology and included it as part of his administration’s response to violent crime.
After a spike in high-profile shooting incidents last summer, Bibb announced the Raising Investment in Safety for Everyone or RISE Initiative, which included the then recently expanded use of ShotSpotter to the 13-square mile area to help police respond to shooting incidents.
Recently in Chicago, Mayor Brandon Johnson sought to both end that city’s contract with ShotSpotter and keep it in place for one more summer, through the Democratic National Convention in August, with a short extension of the contract.
When Cleveland City Council expanded ShotSpotter's usage area it also hired researchers from Cleveland State University to conduct an analysis of the technology's effectiveness. It’s unclear when that report will be presented to council.
