Finding shooters by sound.

[Cal44]

According to friends who live there, one not-so-nice California town has trouble with random shooting at night. Residents frequently hear gun shots.

The town has put in an acoustic locator system.

Sensitive microphones in various locations that can detect gun shots -- wired to a central location.

By recording the exact time the sound of the shot arrives at each of at least three microphones, they can triangulate and locate the source of the gunfire and dispatch police immediately.

Sounds like a neat idea to me, and I never heard of it before, but perhaps this is common and already used lots of places.

 

[PatriotX]

Detroit has such a system in-place.

Detroit police gunshot detection system credited with two arrests in nearly five months | MLive.com

 

[ladder13]

They have them in Yonkers NY and Mt Vernon NY, both cities with alot of "issues".

 

[rwsmith]

That's neat......

That's neat as a beet.

I imagine this technology will spread to all over places with 'issues'.

 

[Jessie]

The military uses a version on vehicles to locate snipers. All the sensors are pretty much together on a pedestal though.
May be a little different system.

 

[Squarebutt]

Springfield MA and several other MA cities have had Shotspotter for several years. It helps if the patrol car is nearby. Often they arrive too late to find the culprits, but they often find gunshot victims in time to get them medical help.

 

[DWalt]

It's been around for quite a while, may be spreading to smaller localities.

 

[steveno]

Omaha has it as well

 

[S&W Fan]

Yup Denver PD has been using it for a few months now.

 

[sheepdawg]

Darn I thought this was going to be a thread about hearing an old shotgun kind of like my 1946 Model 12 have it's slide racked. You'll find a shooter by sound in my house that way.

 

[EQGuy]

A geophysicist I worked for first developed this system around 20 years ago. I think it was first installed in East Palo Alto.

 

[GaryS]

The system being used by police departments was developed for use in Iraq and Afghanistan. it was then made available to domestic police agencies, usually funded by grants.

It's very accurate and can detect if the shooter is moving or standing still. It can differentiate between back fires, fireworks, and gun shots. Usually, that is.

The system also has audio playback so dispatchers can listen to it as well. I was told, but never saw, that the audio can be played over computers (not dumb terminals) in police cars.

It has helped to catch some perpetrators, at least in Boston.

A geophysicist I worked for first developed this system around 20 years ago. I think it was first installed in East Palo Alto.

 

[EQGuy]

Here is a USGS report on the system. I worked for John Lahr in the 1980's. I see from the paper it was not East Palo Alto but Menlo Park that first tried it. This makes sense as John lived in East Menlo Park at the time. I remember this beings John's brain child at the time.

Earthquake Technology Fights Crime

 

[finesse_r]

Just more big brother and anything that powerful can and will eventually be misused.

 

[venomballistics]

The shot spotter system.
Yep, Omaha has this in the northeast precinct.

 

[bushmaster1313]

This gizmo would have been useful in Dealy Plaza

 

[Malpasowildlifer]

Hmmm, is it Hoopa? Covelo? Happy Camp? LOL

 

[Whitwabit]

There are systems in place in areas of Peoria, Illinois.. They announce on the news how many shots were heard the day before sometimes.

They triangulate the shots and then normal patrols are dispatched in a matter of seconds to where the shots were fired. Not sure if they have ever caught anyone with it but have found some people right after being shot ..

 

[LVSteve]

The basic principal is called "time difference of arrival" and it has been around for a long time. The British GEE navigation system of WWII used it, although "inside out" compared with a shooter locating system. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multilateration

 

[StrawHat]

C. E. Harris reported it's use on the East Coast, maybe a decade ago.

Kevin