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

 

[walnutred]

'Shots fired at 5th and Main, deploy the armed drones".

 

[CajunBass]

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

Shots were fired in this area. That gives us probable cause to search you for weapons. Oh? You have a carry permit and a weapon? We'll have to take you downtown for questioning and a ballistic fingerprint and GSR swab.

Naw..."They" couldn't do that.

Could they?

 

[Chipmunk6]

Hmmm...Time to develop my
concealable bow project
Chipmunk6

 

[Bajadoc]

Parts of Los Angeles has this. It doesn't work.

The equipment is often disabled. When it works, it takes too long to get the intelligence to the field. People who shoot up the urban environment tend to not stick around. Shooters instinctively understand the tactical advantage of fire and maneuver.

 

[NYlakesider]

They had a system like that in Troy NY a few years back. They ballyhooed it as a super great thing. Even did a bunch of news broadcast with cops shooting blanks out of M1 rifles in different parts of the city to show what it could do. Within a couple years with hardly any fanfare the got rid of it.

A Troy cop I knew said it was mostly useless as it did not live up to its hype. For many reasons that city has far more than its fair share of actual shootings and guns fired. Kinda make you wonder!

 

[usm1rifle]

Minneapolis has had the "Shot-spotter" system for about ten years. They have dozens of installations and can dispatch a patrol to a hotspot in seconds. One of the facilities I used to manage for the County was Detox at 1800 Chicago Avenue, it had one of the first of these systems installed. At that time, we were ordered not to talk about it.

A lot has changed since then. With so many sites, the triangulation is now excellent - they can tell when the shot originated within about 100 feet.

Whether they dispatch a patrol depends on what part of the city you live in. There are some ares where gunshots are so common as to be ridiculous.

Glad I'm retired!

 

[Whitwabit]

Shots were fired in this area. That gives us probable cause to search you for weapons. Oh? You have a carry permit and a weapon? We'll have to take you downtown for questioning and a ballistic fingerprint and GSR swab.

Naw..."They" couldn't do that.

Could they?

The areas where these are located in my area you wouldn't want to be driving through .. if you were in a nice car/truck your probably going to be pulled over and searched for drugs ..

In Peoria I think they have mobile ones so they can move them around.

But it would be an excuse that could be used !

 

[coltle6920]

Women have this triangulation built right into their brain.How else do you think they are able to sniff out and find all those garage sales.

 

[El Biblioitecario]

The technology is at least a century old; it was used during World War I to precisely locate enemy artillery in order to initiate counterbattery fire.

 

[Johnmuratore]

The shooters probably have the "shoot, move, communicate" thing down pretty well.