In the coming weeks, Martinsville Police will finish calibrating a detection system designed to expedite responses to gun-related crimes.
Police Chief Rob Fincher refers to it as the gunshot detection system. Currently consisting of 140 sensors placed strategically throughout the city, the gunshot detection system uses sound to alert officers to the location of what could be a gun-related incident.
“We’re in the testing phase of it,” Fincher said, adding that there may be adjustments in the coming weeks before the system is brought online. “They are checking to see if the layout is proper, and they may have to move some of the monitors or install new ones to give us [additional] coverage.”
Fincher explained that the system uses three sensors to triangulate a sound’s source before sending the location to officers in the field.
Addressing privacy concerns, Fincher said the system ignores what doesn’t align with the sound of a gun firing.
“They have narrowed the frequency of that bandwidth,” Fincher said, adding that this doesn’t mean the system isn’t susceptible to false alerts. “It’s going to detect a gunshot, but fireworks are really close to a gunshot, so you may get a false alert if someone sets off a firecracker.”
The sensors were built by Flock Safety, an Atlanta-based tech firm. Martinsville Police were able to purchase $80,000 worth of this equipment through a grant from Attorney General Jason Miyares’ office.
“The whole project was covered by Ceasefire Virginia,” Fincher said.
Ceasefire Virginia is a program spearheaded by the attorney general that seeks to explore ways to prevent and solve gun crimes more efficiently.
“They chose 13 cities throughout Virginia to be their pilot program,” Fincher said. “Within these 13 cities, we’re going to be doing things like … providing additional funding for technologies.”
The gunshot detection system is the most recent addition to Martinsville’s Police Department since they committed to exploring new technologies to streamline their work. Earlier this year, Martinsville Police established a license plate camera system and hoped to implement other systems over the next several months.
Fincher said the gunshot detection system is compatible and will work in conjunction with the camera system.
“Automatic license readers and intersection cameras, this works with those,” Fincher said, explaining that if an officer on patrol has a city map pulled up, they could see data from all three systems. “If they are responding [to the gunshot detection system], if there is a close-by camera, they can click on that and look through the camera in that area, or they can pull up the data for the license plate readers in that area as they are responding to that call.”
Fincher described the system, set to officially go online in a few weeks, as a first-alert system, which allows police to respond to a potential issue before a call is made. Fincher said technologies that allow for this will become increasingly important in the coming years.
“Advances in technology are a great tool in enhancing our officers’ ability to fight crime,” Fincher said. “That’s our ultimate goal, and we will reach out for new forms of technology in order to make the job more efficient and more accurate.”
