Company’s gunshot-surveillance offer sparks emotional debate on Durham City Council

Lavern Lucier said you never know how much an issue like gun violence will affect you, “until it knocks on your front door.”

Her 18-year-old son, Syncere Burrel, was shot inside a car on Aug. 10. On that Monday, police reported three people in Durham died in separate shootings.

“My son was murdered right around the corner from his home,” Lucier said.

In response to Durham’s recent rise in shootings and to help people like Lucier, City Council member Mark-Anthony Middleton has pushed for the Bull City to approve a contract with ShotSpotter. The company sells a gunshot-detection system to cities and offered Durham a free, six-month trial of the program in August.

As of Aug. 22, nearly 200 people had been shot in 158 incidents, the Durham Police Department told The News & Observer.

City Council members listened to the company’s presentation at a meeting Thursday.

A majority indicated they are not interested.

Council members Charlie Reece and Javiera Caballero questioned the city’s ability to fund it long-term and the company’s effectiveness.

New Council member Pierce Freelon and Mayor Pro Tem Jillian Johnson opposed it outright.

Debate over increasing police presence

“I’m not interested in putting into place any technology that’s going to increase the amount of policing that we’re doing in Durham,” Johnson said.

“I don’t call the police when I hear gunfire generally because I don’t know that the police are gonna help the situation,” Johnson continued. “For example, a few months ago there was a shooting across the street from my house and my neighbors and I came outside. We made sure that no one was hurt.”

Another neighbor had called the police, she said. The people who lived in the house where the shooting occurred decided to leave their house “as a safety plan.”

“By the time the police got there, there wasn’t really anything to do in the situation. The immediate threat had been resolved by the people who were in the situation with the support of the neighborhood,” she said.

Council member DeDreana Freeman said she often hears from people who live with gunfire in their neighborhood.

“I just ask that you pay attention to the voices that are owed at the table, center those voices that say things like, my child knows to jump into the tub,” she said. “This is ridiculous”

Freeman asked her colleagues to “acknowledge that the voices of the people who don’t come to our meetings are not here. “

“They’re not sending us emails. They’re not organizing,” she said. “They’re just frustrated because they can’t send their kids outside to play.”

Lucier said she supports ShotSpotter and wants police officers to be more visible in her neighborhood.

“I mean, there’s so many children losing their lives 18 and under that could be the next president, the next doctor, lawyer,” she said. “They’re not even getting a chance to do anything.”

“The kids in these communities need to be able to go outside. They shouldn’t have fear of living in McDougald, Braggtown, Cornwallis, in housing developments,” she added.

How ShotSpotter works

The system places sensors across a city to pick up sounds that resemble gunshots, according to the company website. The program analyzes the sound, compares it to other gunfire sounds with an algorithm, and sends the results to law enforcement officers, who decide what to do from there.

The company’s director of public safety Ron Teachman said the detection system can lead to more and faster police responses, which can improve investigating incidents.

Other North Carolina cities use it, including Greensboro, Wilmington and Greenville. New York City, Chicago and Washington D.C. use it as well.

Charlotte, however, stopped using it in 2018, saying it didn’t return on the investment.

Council members question the long-term cost

In their presentation, ShotSpotter’s director of public safety Ron Teachman said 80% of gunfire is not reported to police, according to his company’s analysis of other U.S. cities.

Reece questioned whether that applied to Durham.

“If your data is even close to correct that 80% of gunfire is going unreported, won’t that require a significant increase in police staffing and resources to respond to all those calls?” he asked.

Police Chief Cerelyn “C.J.” Davis said it would help police officers pinpoint specific areas with gang activity.

“I think the additional data that that we would get from ShotSpotter would help us to be more proactive,” she said.

Davis said the officers who currently handle gunfire and aggravated assaults would prioritize analysis from the program.

“We really want to see whether or not this technology is going to help us as it relates to our visibility in the right place at the right time, and our community engagement with individuals who were experiencing gunfire on a regular basis without anybody showing up,” she said.

But Caballero said she had “a lot of reservations” about the potential costs of the program because it could eventually require more hiring officers.

“That isn’t sustainable in the long term,” she said.

Middleton implored the council to see if the program can help Durham gain a better grasp on gun violence in the city.

“We don’t have any Durham-specific data, because there is no data without an experiment,” he said.

It would cost the city $235,000 to set ShotSpotter up, and $195,000 each following year, The News & Observer reported last March.

Is ShotSpotter responsive or reactive?

Thousands of Durham residents have grown used to hearing gunfire in their neighborhoods, Middleton said.

“I reject that out of hand,” he said.

He had proposed trying ShotSpotter last year, but other council members opposed it, saying it lacked supporting data and relied too heavily on surveillance.

He sees the program as an example of government responsiveness, not surveillance, he said.

“These aren’t cameras on every corner. These are passive sensors that require an event, a threshold, a crossing event, an acoustical event, to trigger them,” he said. “I’m not supporting putting cameras around the city.”

A coordinator at the Religious Coalition for a Nonviolent Durham sees it differently. Drew Doll said the program is a “reactive” response to gun violence.

“ShotSpotter is trying, at best, to put a band-aid on a problem. Root causes are not going to be addressed,” said Doll, who is also a member of the community coalition Durham Congregations, Associations, and Neighborhoods.

He wants Durham’s City Council to turn down ShotSpotter.

“It’s a great marketing tool,” he said, about the free, six-month trial offer. “Because once you’ve got it all set up and pulled into your policing practice, you’re not going to want to let it go.”

He thinks municipal dollars should go toward improving living conditions in Durham Housing Authority complexes.

Middleton said part of his push for SpotSpotter is to represent those who don’t usually have a say in local government.

“I’m here because there is a segment of this community who don’t write emails, as Councilor Freeman said, who don’t organize,” he said.

Seeing little support from his colleagues, Middleton rebuked the council.

“What I know is that at the end of the day: no money for root-cause initiatives. No ShotSpotter. No this, no that,” he said, speaking louder. “We have demonstrated our ability to say ‘no.’”

This story was originally published September 10, 2020 at 1:06 PM with the headline "Company’s gunshot-surveillance offer sparks emotional debate on Durham City Council."