(The Center Square) – Pittsburgh’s $8.5 million contract for its gunshot radar system appears to remain an unsettled issue.
The three-year contract, renewed by City Council in December, has drawn many detractors, including Pittsburgh residents who came to recent public meetings to say as much.
Referencing an August audit of the ShotSpotter system, resident Honey Rosenbloom called the radars “secretive surveillance technology” that hasn’t reduced gun-related crime and worsened racial tensions with police.
“So why are we entertaining spending more money on the system that does little more than extend the surveillance of citizens by private company and actively makes money off there being gun violence?” she said.
ShotSpotter uses sensors to triangulate the location of gunshots in areas of the city covered by the system, with a false positive rate of 1% and an alert time of 60 seconds.
Councilwoman Barbara Warwick, during a Feb. 24 meeting, noted while response times for the thousands of ShotSpotter alerts in 2025 were five minutes faster, police only made 234 arrests, half of which she said were unrelated to gun crime.
“With so many calls leading to no report, you have to ask yourself, ‘response time to what?’” she said.
Gunfire alerts within 60 seconds of detection, said Gary Bunyard, senior vice president of public safety solutions at SoundThinking, told The Center Square. SoundThinking owns the ShotSpotter system.
“On occasion, there are scenarios where people will make the assumption that if there was no crime report written, if there was no perpetrator arrested, if there was no evidence gathered, then a crime apparently did not occur,” he said. “That is a very bad assumption and can be a very dangerous assumption.”
Bunyard said many things beyond the company’s control impact whether an arrest happens. Shooters often flee, may know to pick up shell casings or use firearms that don’t leave shell casings behind at all.
“There’s so many factors that can affect whether or not evidence was found,” he said. “And those can apply to a ShotSpotter incident or whether somebody called 911.”
More than 170 cities across the country use the technology and a company spokesman said more have expanded their contract within the last year than those that have cancelled over the last decade.
The New York City Police Department signed a three-year $21.9 million contract with the company last year. It also expanded its presence in the Los Angeles region and across 14 municipalities in New Jersey.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, however, cancelled the city’s contract last year, despite majority support for it from 35 of 50 Alders, 33 of 47 councilmembers and 80% of independently surveyed voters.
The Chicago Tribune editorial board opined on Jan. 23 that the “terrible decision” has been underscored by the death of Kiara Jenkins, a mother of five who was shot and killed in South Side the week before. Her body went undiscovered for 10 hours, despite a 911 call from an off-duty police officer who heard the gunshots himself and reported the location to emergency dispatchers.
CWB Chicago, a media organization that tracks gun-related deaths since Johnson discontinued ShotSpotter, has recorded 77 in areas where the detection systems used to exist.
Bunyard said that 2,394 ShotSpotter alerts in Pittsburgh last year caught 8,554 rounds fired. The company has not fielded any complaints from the city about false positives, he clarified.
“By doing what we do, we provide law enforcement with the most precise information, the shortest path to get the incident of gun violence,” Bunyard said. “We provide law enforcement with what we believe is the most unbiased approach to responding to gun violence.”
He noted that cities themselves determine the location of sensors, often based on historical rates of gun violence.
“We are filling that gap with 911,” Bunyard said. “The reality is in most of these troubled neighborhoods that are plagued by gun violence, people are not calling 911.”
