Shots Fired, Pinpointed and Argued Over: Technicians in the Bay Area are monitoring gunshots all over the country, and sending police to respond to alarms thousands of miles away.

A technician quickly focused on the computer screen, where the words “multiple gunshots” appeared in large type. She listened to a recording of the shots — the tat-tat-tat-tat-tat of five rounds from a small-caliber weapon — and zoomed in on a satellite map to see where the gun had been fired: North 23rd Street in Milwaukee, 2,200 miles away.

At 7:23:48, the technician, satisfied that the sounds were gunshots, sent an alert to the Milwaukee Police Department. Less than two minutes later, or at 9:25:02 p.m. Wisconsin time, a tactical team arrived at the address to find five .22-caliber shell casings and a bleeding 15-year-old boy who had been shot in the arm.

It recently switched from an installed model to SaaS:

But the company now offers a subscription plan for a yearly fee of $40,000 to $60,000 per square mile that includes round-the-clock monitoring of alerts by trained reviewers here in Mountain View.

Naturally, there are privacy concerns.

Comments

1. Comment by Noel, June 2, 2012 4:29 pm

   This is has been in use for a while in Minneapolis.

   http://www.startribune.com/local/minneapolis/136269143.html

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