At the request of New Bern Alderman Bobby Aster, New Bern Police Chief Patrick Gallagher made a special presentation to the New Bern Board of Alderman on Tuesday about bringing a program that is able to detect gunshots instantly into the Duffyfield area.
ShotSpotter uses sensors to identify the sound of gunshots within a radius of one square mile, according to Gallagher. The program uses a computer to triangulate the location of the shot, then its sent to an acoustic expert at ShotSpotter who can validate the sound.
“An acoustic expert, who is a human being, will validate that as a bona fide firearm, as opposed to backfire of a vehicle or fireworks, for instance,” Gallagher explained in his presentation. “ShotSpotter has guaranteed that they can validate that shot within 60 seconds.”
However, Gallagher said experts have indicated that a majority of shots are validated in under thirty seconds, and sent directly to the police department.
Not only do ShotSpotter alerts allow law enforcement officers to respond to gunshots within minutes, it also gives officers the ability to respond with proper situational awareness.
Gallagher outlined the additional benefits of ShotSpotter, like evidence enhancement.
“The collection of evidence, specific to ballistic evidence, is critically important because ballistic evidence is much like a fingerprint or DNA,” he explained. “Each individual firearm will have unique characteristics of its own, just like a fingerprint.”
With ballistic evidence and the department’s ability to upload that evidence into the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network (NIBIN), law enforcement can tell if a specific firearm has been used anywhere in the United States, according to Gallagher.
Gallagher said this technology will give the New Bern Police Department the ability to locate witnesses of gunfire quicker, apprehend and arrest violators quicker, and disrupt the shooting cycle much easier than they currently do.
Additionally, the program can be easily integrated with current technology at the NBPD, like their Computer Automated Dispatch System and Records Management System.
According to New Bern City Manager Foster Hughes, this program has been mentioned before in budget discussions; however, based on priority rankings submitted by NBPD it has not received funding yet.
Since New Bern is a community with less than 50,000 residents, ShotSpotter has a program that allows NBPD to utilize the technology for $49,500 each year, according to Gallagher. There is an initial cost of $16,800 in order to integrate the ShotSpotter program with the NBPD systems.
“So that initial cost is $66,300, and then every year there after it is $49,500,” Gallagher explained. “I don’t know what the value of a human life is, I can’t tell you that, Narcan costs roughly $38 a unit and we save lives everyday for $38, well worth it; if we can stop one death, it’s well worth $50,000, in my opinion.”
Based on data related to gun violence starting from November 2023 and going back to the beginning of 2022, NBPD has done assessments on where and to what extent New Bern has gun violence problems.
This data found that the greatest numbers of incidences involving gun violence occur predominantly in the Duffyfield area, Craven Terrace area, and areas just south of that. Gallagher noted that this location represents roughly 13% of the New Bern population.
Gallagher said this data showed that 21 firearms, that were involved in criminal activities, were recovered, excluding suicide cases and non-criminal firearm incidents. Data showed eight individuals sustained gunshot injuries, and NBPD responded to three cases involving homicide, one being the death of 19 month old Nia’Loni Sheptock on July 4.
Of the 38 calls where NBPD recovered shell casings, a total of 329 shell casings were recovered, according to Gallagher.
“In one incident, there were 51 shots fired in that one incident, that’s multiple people shooting firearms, and likely shooting at each other,” he said. “Understand this represents only 12% of what actually occurred, if we use the statistics, so that number is greatly increased.”
Research shows that only 12% of gunfire is actually recorded, according to Gallagher.
Although the Board ultimately agreed that this is a life saving technology, the discussion on ShotSpotter was tabled until the December 12 meeting.
In the meantime, the Board has directed Chief Gallagher to engage and educate the community who would be within ShotSpotter’s radius more on the program.
Additionally, the Board has asked him to look into contacting potential sponsors to help cover the costs that would be incurred during a five year contract.
Alderman Aster is already prepared to take the initial $66,300 required to get the program up and running out of American Rescue Plan Act Funds, but NBPD will be looking for sponsors to help cover the yearly subscription cost of $49,500.
Chief Gallagher said he has identified three different community stakeholders who he feels would be interested in funding this program, but does not want to name them until they have discussed the matter.
Reporter Caramia Valentin can be reached at [email protected].