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ShotSpotter requests to be held in contempt rather than disclose its methodology

chicagoreader.com

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Re: ShotSpotter requests to be held in contempt rather than disclose its methodology

#181

Post by woodruffw »

randyrand wrote: post #98

> selectively deployed in minority areas God this phrasing gets so annoying. If white neighborhood residents were being murdered in their streets, you really don’t think they’d put these devices there? Residents would be itching for them! It’s about catching murders - putting these devices in places with the most gun violence. Having police catch murderers is something we all want - rich neighborhoods included - and…

> God this phrasing gets so annoying. If white neighborhood residents were being murdered in their streets, you really don’t think they’d put these devices there? Residents would be itching for them!

If there were similar amounts of homicide in white areas, white residents would be using their political clout to demand solutions, not pretextual pseudoscience. And this is, in fact, what we see: white neighborhoods get beat cops who live nearby, while black neighborhoods get surveillance and patrol cars with humps from the next county over.

Re: ShotSpotter requests to be held in contempt rather than disclose its methodology

#182

Post by bitbckt »

randyrand wrote: post #98

> selectively deployed in minority areas God this phrasing gets so annoying. If white neighborhood residents were being murdered in their streets, you really don’t think they’d put these devices there? Residents would be itching for them! It’s about catching murders - putting these devices in places with the most gun violence. Having police catch murderers is something we all want - rich neighborhoods included - and…

“I have a friend in Humbolt park” reads like “I have a [black/brown/asian/etc.] friend”.

Have a little self-awareness.

Re: ShotSpotter requests to be held in contempt rather than disclose its methodology

#183

Post by remflight »

If they don’t reveal their methodology then how could this be used as evidence? Shouldn’t that lead to the entire case being thrown out if the police were alerted by this? Seems ridiculous to not allow the defense to see the methodology, even radar guns get that treatment.

Re: ShotSpotter requests to be held in contempt rather than disclose its methodology

#184

Post by dang »

randyrand wrote: post #98

> selectively deployed in minority areas God this phrasing gets so annoying. If white neighborhood residents were being murdered in their streets, you really don’t think they’d put these devices there? Residents would be itching for them! It’s about catching murders - putting these devices in places with the most gun violence. Having police catch murderers is something we all want - rich neighborhoods included - and…

Please don't take HN threads into flamewar.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32259253.

Re: ShotSpotter requests to be held in contempt rather than disclose its methodology

#185

Post by ck2 »

solardev wrote: post #5

(Not the OP) For background, this is the company that supposedly locates gunshot sounds in cities (and sometimes battlefields) by microphone triangulation. It doesn't work all that well and is selectively deployed in minority areas and is used by police to selectively enforce crimes, sometimes also altering the evidence. Vice did a few articles on them and the company tried to sue but had it tossed out. Shady all aro…

Since sound speed varies with air density and air density varies with humidity, and humidity is relative and varies greatly in urban areas because of heat absorption/reflection of buildings vs trees, how would this technology be even remotely accurate or reliable?

If it was up in the atmosphere with long consistent pockets of air, maybe. On the ground, no way.

Re: ShotSpotter requests to be held in contempt rather than disclose its methodology

#186

Post by cycomanic »

bushbaba wrote: post #164
jahewson wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, these numbers are meaningless without a null hypothesis to compare them to. If you stop random people in the monitored areas, at the right time of day, how many guns do you find?

You need cause to investigate someone. So sounds like even if shot spotter is not accurate, it’s still effective. Criminal is a criminal.

So to rephrase your argument, shotspotter allows police to arrest people with made up evidence. You say that is a good thing, because they were criminals anyway.

You have an interesting concept of the rule of law.

Re: ShotSpotter requests to be held in contempt rather than disclose its methodology

#187

Post by woodruffw »

bluedino wrote: post #172
telchior wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're assuming the "gunshot alerts" are actually gunshots, though. As noted, the sensors will identify other sounds as gunshots, and the company won't reveal its methodology so... do you live in a neighborhood with 50k gunshots, or 5k gunshots and 45k backfiring cars / fireworks / loud songs with gunshot sound effects?

When's the last time you heard a car backfire? And who plays music loud enough to be mistaken for gunfire?

Is hearing cars backfire particularly unusual? I hear it once or twice a week.

I also hear kids shooting fireworks, and those modifications people do to their motorcycles and cars to make them sound like they're backfiring (even if they aren't; I don't know how these things work).

Re: ShotSpotter requests to be held in contempt rather than disclose its methodology

#188

Post by dang »

mbesto wrote: post #163
randyrand wrote: post #98

> selectively deployed in minority areas God this phrasing gets so annoying. If white neighborhood residents were being murdered in their streets, you really don’t think they’d put these devices there? Residents would be itching for them! It’s about catching murders - putting these devices in places with the most gun violence. Having police catch murderers is something we all want - rich neighborhoods included - and…

> You think he doesn’t want these devices? Don't Chinese people want the social credit system too? You clearly glossed over the more important factor "is used by police to selectively enforce crimes, sometimes also altering the evidence". So, no, your "buddy in Humbolt park" doesn't want this when he gets accused of a crime he didn't commit. He wants actual systematic changes to an impoverished areas - black or white…

Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: ShotSpotter requests to be held in contempt rather than disclose its methodology

#189

Post by quickthrower2 »

gitfan86 wrote: post #102
alasdair_ wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine I made a magic "crime detection" box that called the police each time a crime was "detected". Now imagine all it did was randomly pick a number from 1 to 100 each day and if it were a 1 or a 2, it "detected" a crime, giving probable cause to police to search people near the box. Now imagine I almost exclusively put the boxes in areas where black people without a lot of money lived. You could see this would be…

Imagine if there were 100 gun murders in a city in one year and you had a magic box that was 100% accurate at detection of location of gun shots within 1 mile and the city could only afford to buy 10 magic boxes. Would you put those magic boxes near where previous gun crimes have been committed or would you put those boxes in places based on the race and sexual orientation and disability status and gender of the peop…

Well how useful is that anyway? Probably not useful for evidence or crime prevention. I imagine most murders are known about fairly quickly due to a corpse (except say by “professionals”) or people hear the gunshot and call in.

Logically I would say spending the money on gun control would be better, but politically that seems like a no no. Make carrying in the street illegal with jail time, and use the money in a gun amnesty.

Re: ShotSpotter requests to be held in contempt rather than disclose its methodology

#190

Post by llanowarelves »

gorbachev wrote: post #167
llanowarelves wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If true, selective enforcement is bad. But some minority demographics commit disproportionate (edit: violent) crime per capita so you expect some proportional scaling (more crime = more need for crime detection) if they happen to live in cities/areas where that's the case. (Usually big cities)

That depends entirely on what you consider as crime worth pursuing. For example, it's well documented wage theft is a much bigger crime in terms of monetary value than all forms of robberies combined. But those criminals don't get nearly the same level of enforcement as robbers do.

May be true, but we're talking about (alleged) crimes that ShotSpotter can pick up: gets labelled as "violent crimes".

Other Spotters for things such as wage theft, fraud, etc would be great.

You could (and I would) argue some whole industries are heavily criminal (fraud) and bait people into moral hazard.

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