SoundThinking, Inc. (formerly ShotSpotter Inc.) is an American security technology company based in Fremont, California. The company is publicly traded, and is known for its gunfire locator service. ShotSpotter claims it can identify when a gunshot is fired in an area in order to dispatch law enforcement, though researchers have noted concerns about effectiveness, reliability, privacy, and equity. The company has been partnering with cities and police since 1997, and as of 2022 has been utilized by more than 130 cities and law enforcement agencies in the US.
History ShotSpotter was founded by Robert Showen in the 1990s while he was working for SRI International. He created a company in 1996 and tested prototypes in Redwood City, California. Its early success was described by Wired as being "due to good PR, not good technology." James Beldock joined as CEO in 2003 as a "turnaround specialist"; in 2005 the company merged with Centurist Systems, which was creating acoustic sniper location systems for the military; Centurist held a "deceptively simple patent" for the location algorithm. Centurist's CEO, Scott Manderville, became chairman of the board.
As of 2021, the acoustic locator technology was installed in 125 cities and 14 campuses, covering 911 square miles. The locators are typically installed at 20–25 sensors per square mile and primarily connected via 4G networks (mostly AT&T and Verizon). In 2020, Chicago was 18% of the company's revenue, and New York City was 15%.
Ralph Clark was named CEO of ShotSpotter in 2010. The company went public in June 2017. The company authorized a stock buyback program in 2019 and bought back $8.3 million by the end of 2020.
The company's gross revenues were $58.2 million in 2021 (increased coverage by 49 square miles and 10 cities), up from $45.7 million in 2020 and from $40.8 million in 2019 (increased coverage by 82 square miles and 6 cities). The company had a net loss of $4.4 million in 2021, in part from nonrenewal of contracts and increases in legal costs, PR from Trident DMG, and lobbying.
Toronto, Ontario has declined to use the technology, as the Ministry of the Solicitor General (Ontario) believes it violates Section 8 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The company previously provided indoor gunfire locator technology, but discontinued it in 2018. ShotSpotter illegally lobbied the city of Oakland, California in 2014 and received a $5000 fine.
In April 2023, the company rebranded to SoundThinking to better represent "holistic approach to gun violence", but retained the ShotSpotter product name.
In an August 2023 earnings call, the CEO of SoundThinking announced that the company had begun the process of absorbing parts (including the "engineering team") of Geolitica, formerly known as PredPol. The company spent nearly $24 million in sales and marketing in 2023.
Studies A June 2021 study in the Journal of Experimental Criminology stated the system "may be of little benefit to police agencies with a pre-existing high call volume. Our results indicate no reductions in serious violent crimes, yet [ShotSpotter] increases demands on police resources." An October 2021 paper in the Journal of Urban Health, studying the longitudinal effects of ShotSpotter over a 17 year period, found "implementing ShotSpotter technology has no significant impact on firearm-related homicides or arrest outcomes. Policy solutions may represent a more cost-effective measure to reduce urban firearm violence."
In 2021 the NYU School of Law Policing Project published "Measuring the effects of ShotSpotter on Gunfire in St. Louis County, Mo", a paper which indicated a significant drop in gun violence in the area; however, the paper also discloses that ShotSpotter "has provided the Policing Project with unrestricted funding".
In July 2023, a Houston Chronicle investigation showed that ShotSpotter calls resulted in lower incident report rates and longer police response times. Over 80% of ShotSpotter alerts were false positives or otherwise useless. The almost 5500 alerts led to 99 arrests and 126 charges, about half of which were misdemeanors. A disproportionate number of residents in coverage areas are people of color. The Houston Police Department cast the system as a way to invest in historically marginalized areas. In May 2024, Houston mayor John Whitmire said "I think it's a gimmick. A feel-good program. Most law enforcement officers do not support ShotSpotter. I don't support it." The city's contract goes through 2027, but Whitmire wants to terminate it early.
A 2024 Northeastern University study showed that ShotSpotter increased detection of gunfire, but did not result in a reduction of gun violence or an increase in gunshot crime case clearance. Ohio State University criminal justice professor Terrance Hinton described it as "more of a Band-Aid... it doesn't address the root cause of gun violence".
Jennifer Doleac told Voice of San Diego that ShotSpotter "resisted attempts (by me and others) to do a rigorous evaluation of its impacts", noting "they've clearly found that they can get cities to sign their contracts without such evidence."
A 2024 audit from the New York City Comptroller found that during the month of June 2023 New York City Police Department responded to 940 alerts, 82% could not confirm a shot was fired, and 5% were unfounded or a false positive. It also stated that NYPD was over-representing the benefits of the system in reducing response times. Comptroller Brad Lander said "NYPD is wasting precious time and money on this technology and needs to do a better job managing its resources. Chasing down car backfires and construction noise does not make us safer." Activist and early supporter of the ShotSpotter installation Jumaane Williams agreed it wasn't working, stating "More concerning is a response to the report. Even the recommendations that say, 'let's try to make it better,' the most material of the recommendations were outright rejected by this administration."
Opposition In May 2024, three senators and a representative wrote a letter requesting the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General open an investigation into ShotSpotter for its accuracy and racial bias in policing.
Campaign Zero has a project called #CancelShotSpotter that addresses claims made by the company versus studies. In 2025 the campaign put mobile billboards in Little Rock, Arkansas to oppose renewing a ShotSpotter contract stating "ShotSpotter admits it doesn't prevent crime. What are your tax dollars paying for?" and "ShotSpotter cannot tell the difference between a popped balloon, fireworks or gunshots." It has also placed advertisements in Fayetteville, North Carolina in 2024.
Design ShotSpotter's gunshot detection system utilizes a series of sensors to capture loud, impulsive sounds. When such sounds are identified, sensors send data to a pair of algorithms responsible for identifying a location and determining if the event can be classified as potential gunfire. Employees at the company are charged with confirming incidents and notifying local police.
Although it is designed to be just an investigative tool for the police, it has also been used for actual primary evidence in trials, leading to criticism about ShotSpotter's effectiveness beyond its primary purpose.
Accuracy As of 2021, ShotSpotter evidence has been used in 190 court cases, though it is often withdrawn when challenged. ShotSpotter has admitted it manually alters the computer-calculated evidence "on a semiregular basis", and it has never been independently tested, leading to doubts about its accuracy. Vice's Motherboard noted that ShotSpotter "frequently modify alerts at the request of police departments." Associated Press also noted their "methods for identifying gunshots aren't always guided solely by the technology."
While the company claims a 97% accuracy rate, the MacArthur Justice Center studied over 40,000 dispatches in an under-two-year period in Chicago and found that 89% of dispatches resulted in no gun-related crime, and 86% resulted in no crime at all. These results were backed up by a subsequent report by the Chicago Inspector General, which also found that police officers had begun stopping and searching people solely because they were in a place known to have many ShotSpotter alerts. ShotSpotter's CEO described an earlier 80% accuracy rate as "basically our subscription warranty", but employee Paul Greene said "Our guarantee was put together by our sales and marketing department, not our engineers." A multipart investigation published in 2024 by South Side Weekly found that ShotSpotter missed hundreds of shootings in Chicago the previous year; leaked company emails revealed executives discussing the fact that they had nonworking sensors and not enough personnel to quickly repair them, but could not admit that to city officials.
A study published in January 2024 showed that ShotSpotter implementations in Chicago and Kansas City did not result in reductions in shootings or crime or increased clearance rates.
The ACLU has raised questions about privacy and surveillance, as the detectors keep hours or days of continuous audio. This audio has been admitted as evidence in at least one trial and rejected under a Massachusetts wiretapping law in a 2017 case. When Forbes sent public records requests to agencies in 2016, ShotSpotter sent a memo to all of its customers, detailing how they should deny or redact the requests. ACLU of Massachusetts noted evidence of gunfire is not found for 70% of alerts, and at least 10% of alerts are from fireworks.
The Associated Press reviewed a confidential operations document that indicated 10% of the algorithm's decisions were overridden by a human. Additionally, the sensors are disproportionately placed in minority communities, leading to more interactions with police, often from false alerts from fireworks, pneumatic nail guns, helicopter rotors, jackhammers, and manual hammers. In cities with cancelled contracts, ShotSpotter still provides alerts to police.
Individual cases
In April 2017, ShotSpotter was able to locate mass-shooter Kori Ali Muhammad, enabling police to apprehend him within minutes.
In 2017, Rochester Police Department officer Joseph Ferrigno shot Silvon Simmons in the back. Accounts between Ferrigno and Simmons vary, but ShotSpotter initially detected the gunshots as a helicopter. The company reclassified it as three gunshots "per the customer's instruction", then revised it to four shots. Later the company's employee Paul Greene "was asked by the Rochester Police department to essentially search and see if there were more shots fired than ShotSpotter picked up", so it was revised to five gunshots, which put it in alignment with Ferrigno's claims. The jury didn't believe ShotSpotter's evidence, and Judge Ciaccio overturned a gun possession charge, describing the ShotSpotter evidence as flawed. Simmons filed a civil lawsuit against ShotSpotter in 2017. April 2024 Judge Frank P. Geraci Jr. dismissed the counts against ShotSpotter, and the jury decided that the officers did not act improperly.
Greene also testified in a 2018 case in Chicago where ShotSpotter initially reported two gunshots. On request of the Chicago Police Department, he re-analyzed and found seven gunshots. This matched the police department's account and was not supported by video or bullet casing evidence.