By JEFF STITT jstitt@yourmvi.com
McKeesport Mayor Michael Cherepko received council’s blessing Wednesday to move forward with applying for a grant that would allow the city to subscribe to the ShotSpotter program.
Council also gave Cherepko permission to apply for a second grant, which if awarded, would allow the city to hire three more full-time police officers and pay their salary for three years.
ShotSpotter
ShotSpotter, which is currently used in the City of Pittsburgh, is a company that offers gunshot detection systems that, according to its website, can detect upwards of 90% of gunfire incidents “with a precise location in less than 60 seconds to significantly improve response times and service levels.”
Acoustic sensors are strategically placed in a coverage area, which in this case would be a roughly 2-square-mile portion of McKeesport.
When a gun is fired, the sensors detect shots fired. Audio triangulation, according to ShotSpotter, pinpoints gunfire location and machine-learning algorithms analyze the sound. Likely gunshots are transmitted to the ShotSpotter’s Incident Review Center.
“Acoustic experts at the Incident Review Center analyze incidents in seconds and add relevant tactical intelligence such as ‘multiple shooters’ and ‘automatic weapons,’” ShotSpotter’s website states. “This may change how officers approach the crime scene. Confirmed gunshots are published within seconds.” Police Chief Adam Al-fer said notifications from ShotSpotter are sent to dispatch centers, patrol car computers and officer smart phones.
According to ShotSpotter, the total time from gunshot to alert is less than 60 seconds.
Mayor’s Assistant Jennifer Vertullo, who has been helping Alfer and Cherepko research the program, said the process of determining whether ShotSpotter will be utilized in McKeesport “is still in the very early stages,” and that the city’s decision to join the program would depend on whether or not the $99,000 Community Policing Development Grant application, which is due by the end of the month, is approved by the U.S. Department of Justice’s “Cops” program.
Vertullo said the city has been in regular communication with ShotSpotter for about two weeks “to find out how this could serve the City of McKeesport.”
Vertullo said city officials will meet with ShotSpotter technicians later this week to get an idea of how many and where sensors would need to be placed in the city and to see a projected coverage map of the area those sensors would cover.
“Two square miles would do a pretty significant part of the city,” Alfer said.
Vertullo said the meeting with the technicians will give the city “a better idea of what that 2 square miles would look like.” The mayor said enrollment in ShotSpotter programs comes with an annual subscription cost that is “not a little fee.”
Vertullo said it is $99,000 per year.
She said the decision to install the system could also hinge on whether the city can pay that annual subscription fee in the future. The city is actively researching grants to help with the costs, Vertullo said.
Cherepko said McKeesport’s police officers are “second to none” and that, while he is concerned about how much a ShotSpotter membership would cost, he thinks it would be a useful tool for the department. “We will continue to do everything we can in our power, utilize all the resources available to us to help make McKeesport a better place to live — a safer place to live in this particular situation — to live, work etc.,” Cherepko said. “There’s no guarantee that we get it, but ShotSpotter would help us identify when there are shots fired calls.
“Our officers will be able to know within a few hundred feet, for the most part, of where a gun was fired.
“People don’t realize when there are shots fired , then there is a delay, then someone calls 911, then there’s a delay between dispatch. I mean sometimes our officers aren’t notified until maybe four or five minutes later,” he said.
“This ShotSpotter could be an absolutely tremendous asset,” Cherepko said.
“This would help us out a lot,” Alfer said. “We would be able to have a patrol right there before dispatch gets the phone call of shots fired. It would definitely be a useful tool.”
Alfer said ShotSpotter’s technology can differentiate between gunshots and other “rapid sounds” that are often mistaken for gunshots.
“It would be able to separate fireworks and gunshots,” Alfer said, adding that there other sounds that people often mistake for a gun being fired.
“We use the example of fireworks because it’s the thing that everyone always thinks is gunfire,” Alfer said.
Cops Hiring Program If the city is approved for a Justice Department 2020 Cops Hiring Program grant, it could see three full-time police officers hired.
“It would be a three year grant,” Cherepko said. “If we were fortunate enough to secure this grant, bring in three officers, there’s a good chance within those three years you would have at least three officers retire anyway, so it’s not like we’d be eating that cost going forward.
“We could actually beef up and have more manpower and not have it be at the cost of the city.”
Cherepko said he would likely promote officers who are currently working part-time to full-time positions if the grant is received.