Gunfire so routine in parts of Pittsburgh 'residents don't call 911'
Pittsburgh is moving ahead with an $8.4 million plan to expand the city's gunshot detection and security camera systems.
Plans call for the gunshot system known by the trade name “Shotspotter” to grow from 3 square miles in the East End to about 18 square miles citywide.
Pittsburgh is poised to double the number of surveillance cameras for a total of 450 across the city.
City Council on Tuesday approved a three-year, $5 million contract with Milwaukee-based Johnson Controls to purchase security cameras and support services. Council also introduced a bill that would pay Shotspotter Inc., based in Newark, Calif., $3.4 million over three years to expand the gunshot detection system.
“In some of these areas gunfire is ... so routine that the residents don't call 911,” Public Safety Director Wendell Hissrich said. “The only indication we have that there's a problem is through Shotspotter. Sometimes we're able to catch the suspect. Sometimes we're able to collect evidence that's left there — shell casings — and more importantly there have been times when we have found victims still alive that we've saved because of Shotspotter.”
Hissrich couldn't immediately provide statistics for the number of victims saved because of the system.
From June 2015 to June 2017, the system alerted police 1,514 times about gunfire, according to data the Tribune-Review obtained through an open records request. Residents reported the shots about 62 percent of the time.
Police made 42 arrests and recovered 33 guns after responding to the alerts. They also found seven gunshot victims in April, May and June of 2017, the first months that information was available.
Hissrich said the 18 square miles will cover an area where 87.5 percent of gun-related homicides and 80.5 percent of reported gunshots have occurred, according to data collected between January 2015 and December.
“It's critical because it saves lives,” said Councilman R. Daniel Lavelle of the Hill District, who chairs the Public Safety Committee. “It actually has been proven to have saved lives in the East End, and we want to ensure that we're doing so across our entire city.”
Hissrich said the new cameras will activate and move toward the sound of gunfire when Shotspotter signals an alert.
He said the city would first expand to the North Side where gunshots are becoming more common and then to the South Side. All police zone stations will be capable of receiving the alerts.
“Zone 1 (North Side) will be the first one,” Hissrich said. “That is the priority. After that we will develop a schedule as to what the next zones will be.”
Staff writer Megan Guza contributed. Bob Bauder is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at 412-765-2312, bbauder@tribweb.com or on Twitter @bobbauder.
This story has been changed to reflect that Shotspotter is based in Newark, Ca. The original version of the story listed an incorrect location.
