As part of the Abolition Working Group’s Neighbors Against Spying campaign, we’ve asked comrades to contact City Council members to speak out against the use of ShotSpotter technology in Houston. Contact your councilmember at any time using talking points from our past actions to speak out against HPD’s use of surveillance technology.

PAST ACTIONS

#StopShotspotter! Contact your City Council Rep by January 5

On January 5, Houston City Council will be voting to approve a $3.5 million 5-year contract to roll out ShotSpotter in Houston. Use the following talking points to call your council member before January 5 or send them an email using our template. 

Who Is My City Council Member (District)?

Don’t forget to contact the City Council’s At-Large members.

Talking Points 

• Technology is not the answer to gun violence. Companies like ShotSpotter aren’t concerned with preventing gun violence. Their technology is not proven to reduce gun violence. We’re just here to serve their bottom line. They mentioned the potential contract with Houston as a “win” in their quarterly earnings call. 
• ShotSpotter sends armed police into Black and Brown neighborhoods instead of providing alternative crisis response like medical attention. Why don’t we divert funds to improving medical response time to gun violence? 
• If the City Council is willing to spend $700,000 a year, we should explore other uses for those funds that actually reduce gun violence.
• 911 responders are underpaid at the City, with an average annual salary of $33,000. If people in neighborhoods are worried about emergency response times, let’s redirect funds to better crisis response and higher salaries for 911 responders. 
• The ShotSpotter pilot has not demonstrated sufficient results to deserve a $3.5 million dollar investment:
  • Only 20% of published ShotSpotter alerts resulted in offense reports, meaning that 80% of responses to ShotSpotter alerts are a waste of officer time
  • Only 21% of fired cartridge cases out of total rounds detected were recovered by HPD, meaning shockingly little evidence of actual gunshots
  • Only 39 guns were recovered by HPD out of over 2,000 alerts 
  • A majority of charges resulting from arrests are misdemeanors, which further clog the county criminal legal system
  • ShotSpotter identified 16 gunshot wound victims and responded by sending police instead of sending medical emergency care
• We do need solutions to gun violence but allocating $3.5million to ShotSpotter is a waste of public funds that will have no effect on reducing gun violence. 

We demand that City Council vote against the 5-year contract with ShotSpotter!

#StopShotspotter! Public Comment on Thurs. Nov. 18 at 2 pm

We are organizing community members to participate in public comment at the next Public Safety Committee meeting on Thursday, November 18 at 2 pm to ask questions of the City Council and HPD re: the Shotspotter pilot program, a wasteful and ineffective surveillance technology that endangers Black and brown communities and increases interactions with high-alert policing. Let’s demand the city invest in safer communities by providing aid and services that prevent harm!

Sign up for public comment

Who Is My City Council Member (District)?

Talking Points and Demands – Script #1

“Hi, my name is [NAME] and I’m a resident of [DISTRICT]. I’m calling in to ensure that the City Council and public are aware of ShotSpotter’s ineffectiveness, wastefulness, and endangerment of Black and brown communities, before purchasing this new technology. Shotspotter technology does not prevent gun violence. 

[Choose one of the following points to provide evidence]

• The City of Chicago’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) found that “ShotSpotter alerts rarely produce documented evidence of a gun-related crime, investigatory stop, or recovery of a firearm.” Source
• The MacArthur Justice Center at Northwestern University School of Law found that:
  • 89% of ShotSpotter deployments in Chicago turned up no gun-related crime; 
  • 86% of ShotSpotter deployments led to no report of any crime at all; 
  • During the 21.5 months studied, there were more than 40,000 dead-end ShotSpotter deployments; 
  • On an average day in Chicago, there are more than 61 ShotSpotter-initiated police deployments that turn up no evidence of any crime, let alone gun crime.  Source

• In 2017, San Antonio canceled their ShotSpotter program, finding it did not reduce gun violence and was a waste of money and resources. Source

ShotSpotter analysts and the police have been accused of manually altering data provided by the technology to create the evidence that supports their narratives that we need more police (Source). 

Harris County pays $260,000 a year to cover four square miles, smaller than the Houston pilot area. I would rather see those funds go toward community programs that prevent gun violence from happening in the first place, instead of creating deadly and ineffective reactions to it. 

Gun violence is a significant issue for Houston communities, and ShotSpotter’s almost exclusive use in Black and Latinx communities sends more police to already overpoliced communities. It increases the number of unnecessary interactions between community members and officers who are on high alert, expecting gun violence. 

We do not need more policing. We need solutions to help people who are struggling financially through direct financial and housing aid and mental health support. I’m calling to ask that you say no to the Shotspotter pilot, stop HPD’s use of surveillance technology, and invest in safer communities by providing aid and services like MCOT, the Gun Violence Interruption Program, and HART.”

Talking Points and Demands – Script #2

“Hi, my name is [NAME] and I’m a resident of [DISTRICT]. I’m calling in response to Commander Martin’s report out at the October 21 meeting of this committee. I’d like to request that Commander Martin respond to the following questions before the next meeting of this committee: 

[Choose three of the following questions to ask]

• How much has HPD spent on the Shotspotter program to-date, and how much has HPD spent per arrest?
• How many of the incidents resulting in “Reports Made” or arrests were also reported through calls to 9-1-1?
• On Page 7 of the report – Why is there such a wide gap between the number of reports made (20% of alerts) and charges filed (3% of alerts)?
• How much officer time is lost when 80% of alerts through Shotspotter don’t even produce a report? How much money does this 80% of calls cost the department as a result? 
• Are officers responding to Shotspotter alerts trained to expect that guns are on the premises? How many non-gunshot related arrests have occurred as a result of a Shotspotter alert? 
• Outside of the ShotSpotter vendor’s corporate guarantee of 90% accuracy, what percent of alerts can HPD confirm were actual gunfire?
• Can HPD confirm that of the $5,000 cost for Shotspotter per square mile, approximately $4,000 corresponds to incidents where gunfire is not confirmed on the scene? 
• Can HPD confirm that of the 47 Shotspotter alerts per square mile, approximately 36 correspond to incidents where gunfire is not confirmed on the scene? 
• Can HPD confirm that there’s currently only 1 arrest per month resulting from the pilot?
• Does HPD have a code of ethics for the use of policing technology?
• Given that Shotspotter owns all of the data coming from listening devices, does HPD have rules in place to ensure that Shotspotter is not selling our personal data to third parties? 

I ask that you reject the Shotspotter pilot and commit to investing more deeply in alternative violence interruption or violence prevention programs. If you do choose to proceed, I ask that you hold a series of community meetings to openly share information about the effectiveness of the program and surveillance and privacy risks. We want real safety, not more police.”