Former Durham mayor: Bring back ShotSpotter | Opinion

Editor’s note: The writer is a former Durham mayor. He wrote in response to the Durham City Council’s Dec. 18 decision not to extend the contract for ShotSpotter, a gunshot surveillance program.

When I became mayor of Durham in 2001, the ShotSpotter gunshot surveillance program was being made available to communities. I was a strong advocate for it in Durham as another tool for law enforcement to use in solving and reducing gunshot related violence.

Much to my dismay, I was not able to get ShotSpotter installed before I left office in 2017. Had I run for office again in 2017 and been reelected, I would have still been a strong advocate for ShotSpotter and would have worked to get it installed.

According to the N&O, “ShotSpotter notifies 911 operators of gunfire detected by audio surveillance sensors in 3 square miles in east and southeast Durham, where the city says a third of all gunshot wounds occur.”

I believe it can assist in solving and reducing crime, especially crimes committed with guns.

I was glad to see that the Durham City Council eventually adopted ShotSpotter as one tool to fight crime — with an even better agreement than was proposed when I was advocating for it to be used.

I was deeply disappointed on Dec. 18 when Durham City Council members declined to extend ShotSpotter’s contract. The N&O reported that council members were heeding residents’ calls to discontinue the gunshot surveillance program.

I was also deeply disappointed in September 2022 when Durham Public Schools refused to allow ShotSpotter to install its gunshot-detecting sensors at schools.

My company, UDI/Community Development Corporation, permitted ShotSpotter to be installed on one of our buildings at Old North Five Points. Prior to it being installed, we had a person shoot into one of our buildings from across the street. Fortunately, no one was present in the building, otherwise there could have been serious injuries. I am sure that had ShotSpotter been installed at the time of that shooting, police would have been notified immediately.

I wonder how many of the people who complain of ShotSpotter being a tool that constitutes over policing of Black and brown communities actually live and work in those communities and are exposed to needless and senseless gunfire?

I appreciate that a study will be conducted by the Duke Law School’s Wilson Center for Science and Justice on the results of Durham’s one-year ShotSpotter pilot period. I await the results of that study and hope it results in a contract renewal. In the end, the price of ShotSpotter is a small price to pay if it in fact saves lives and prevents further injuries from gunshots.

When I was mayor, I constantly said that “good things are happening in Durham.” Our ability as a city to do more than one thing at a time to address our issues was why good things were happening in Durham. The same thing can be said of applying ShotSpotter as a tool to help combat crime, along with use of other community crime-reducing tools and programs. The use of ShotSpotter is not mutually exclusive to other programs.

While I was not in agreement with many of the votes taken by the previous City Council, I always maintained an open mind and gave credit for those votes that I thought were positive for the overall community. A vote for the return of ShotSpotter would be one of those positive votes.

This story was originally published December 21, 2023 at 11:31 AM with the headline "Former Durham mayor: Bring back ShotSpotter | Opinion."