SEATTLE — For the first time since the Seattle City Council approved a proposal to bring gunfire detection technology to the city, members of the public got to directly question representatives of ShotSpotter.
In November 2023, Seattle lawmakers approved $1.5 million in its 2024 budget to test acoustic gunshot detection systems, such as ShotSpotter or a similar technology. The idea is that the technology relies on acoustic sensors mounted in public places to detect the sound of gunfire and help pinpoint its location for police.
Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell had been working on introducing ShotSpotter in Seattle for more than decade. Harrell sat on Seattle City Council from 2008 to 2020 before he was elected mayor in 2021 and tried several times to get the city to approve the technology.
Ahead of the end of a 24-day public comment period regarding ShotSpotter, the Seattle Police Department's African American Advisory Council hosted a representative from SoundThinking, the company that produces ShotSpotter.
