The Sacramento Bee, August 2025
As Sacramento grapples with its multimillion-dollar structural deficit, officials are considering whether to commit money to a controversial gunfire-detection technology. For more than a decade, Sacramento has contracted and spent millions on ShotSpotter — a system that detects and locates suspected shooting incidents. Roughly 180 cities across the U.S. use this technology, according to California-based SoundThinking, which sells the system.
Many law enforcement agencies have praised the tool for cutting response times to gunfire and getting aid to victims faster. But critics say ShotSpotter is costly, prone to false alerts, disproportionately affects communities of color and has no effect on reducing gun violence.
