Sikeston Department of Public Safety to use gunshot detection system
SIKESTON, Mo. (KBSI) – Sikeston will soon have a gunshot detection system after the Sikeston City Council approved the ShotSpotter program on Monday.
The Sikeston Department of Public Safety was awarded the BJA FY23 Rural and Small Department Violent Crime Reduction Grant which will cover the cost of the program for three years.
Sikeston DPS Director Jim McMillen says the program is basically a gunshot detection system.
“If a weapon is fired in the city limits it will send us a notification with the location of where that occurred so we can get there faster and attend to any victims, locate, and identify any witnesses and collect any evidence,” McMillen said. “It should enhance our abilities to find these scenes of these shootings that sometimes go unreported.”
ShotSpotter covers approximately two square miles.
“It covers basically from about Dudley Park down to Virginia from the high school to the west city limits, roughly,” McMillen said. “They tailor it to the residential areas where we see the most shot fired calls.”
“We expect to get a lot of other notifications in our community I think it will be a great program that’s really going to help us increase our public safety in the community and really address violent crime.” Says McMillen
He added that ShotSpotter bases the area off the last 20 months of shots fired calls the city has had with assaults, shootings, and homicides.
McMillen added that according to ShotSpotter roughly 70% of shots fired in the US are not called in for various reasons.
If a gunshot is fired within the target area, the sound is detected by a microphone and mounted in various locations of the target area.
An alert is sent to the gunshot detection operations center for review and verification.
Once a gunshot is verified, an alert is sent to Sikeston DPS communications, the officers data terminal and even their smart phone if desired.
The alert consists of a pin drop location on Google Maps with the exact location, the number of shots fired and a recording of the gunshots within less than one minute, according to Sikeston DPS.
Officers are able to respond to the exact location where the gunshots were fired.
Seargent Tyler Rowe is the Public Information’s Officer for Sikeston DPS.
“It’ll helps us identify, locate shooting scenes, gunshots within that two-mile radius so we can better investigate locate victims, render aide and overall increase the safety and security of our city,” Says Rowe.
The cost of the service is $99,000 per year and the grant will pay for the first three years. There is no financial obligation to continue with the ShotSpotter technology or program after three years. The cost covers installation, monitoring, data analysis as well as expert court room testimony in relation to violent gun crime.
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