The article has a flawed approach, why shouldn't the cops use it? it does a decent job of monitoring, and alerting when gun shots are in an area?<p>Where its time for it to stop being used is in the court of law, I mean you could say possibly compare wave forms and then that of the weapons fire, there are several weapons that have a distinct sound, and cadence, but this is something that a expert witness would have to give testimony about.<p>its like a polygraph test, they can't tell if your lying, but they can't detect a rapid state change, which could indicate they aren't being truthful, which is fine for an investigation, but is why it can't be used in court.<p>And its huge stretch that the public is at greater risk of harm, because the system would lead to cops to treat everyone in the area where a sensor tripped seems like a stretch and I think without actually supporting evidence shouldn't have even been used.<p>I like the eff, but sometimes they seem to over due it, but then again, I guess that true for lawyers and marketers.
Limiting use to basic sensing might make sense. My recollection is that in San Mateo County, California ShotSpotter was used with the specific qualification that it was only to trigger responses and not to be used as evidence. It ended up being a game changer in dealing with the significant problem of guns being fired in celebration. It is true that this happened in mostly minority areas, but that isn't necessarily an excuse to put people in danger with inappropriate use of firearms. For a time whenever there was a shooting police would show up and there were significant problems with vehicle exhaust backfire triggering responses but that went down over time, especially as the shooting stopped.