Pittsburgh City Council Post-Agenda Discussion on ShotSpotter – February 24, 2026
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Pittsburgh City Council Post-Agenda Discussion on ShotSpotter
On February 24, 2026, at 2:30 PM in Council Chambers, Pittsburgh City Council convened a post-agenda discussion on the ShotSpotter gunshot detection system, whose contract is up for renewal. Council Member Barbara Warwick, who requested the meeting, presented preliminary findings from city data while noting the meeting could not proceed as planned due to the absence of key invited speakers from the Public Defender’s Office. The meeting was recessed after brief remarks from Council Member Bob Charland, with a promise to reconvene at a later date.
Public Comments & Testimony
- None were taken; the meeting was focused on invited guests and council discussion.
Discussion Items
- Council Member Barbara Warwick opened by thanking invited guests: Pittsburgh Bureau of Police Chief Jason Lando, Public Safety Director Sheldon Williams, Controller Rachael Heisler, Chief Audit Officer Lee Ajang, Office of Public Safety Technology Manager Dan Shak, EMS Chief Amera Gilchrist, and Assistant Public Defenders Carissa Davenport and Andrew Sherman. She stated the meeting was delayed for nearly nine months and that the Public Defender’s Office was unable to present because the county partners wanted more time to understand the information they planned to share before authorizing their attendance.
- Warwick reported the city has spent nearly $10 million on ShotSpotter to date. She cited national data from New York City, Chicago, Pasadena, Newark, and Pittsburgh showing that 70 to 90 percent of ShotSpotter alerts lead to no report, no arrest, and nothing found. In Pittsburgh, from 2019 to 2025, police responded to 10,000 ShotSpotter calls with no report. She noted that the number of gunshot calls rose from about 2,000 in 2018 (before ShotSpotter) to more than 3,000 in 2021, a 50% increase, with the caveat that 70–90% of those calls yield nothing.
- Warwick stated that response time is about five minutes faster via ShotSpotter compared to 911 calls, but questioned “response time to what” given the high number of unfounded alerts. She also said the city lacks data on calls that had both a 911 report and a ShotSpotter alert, and lacks data on whether ShotSpotter led to faster discovery of shooting victims. She reported that from 2018 to 2023, of 237 arrests from ShotSpotter, less than half were related to gun crimes, implying that officers were arresting people for unrelated offenses after being dispatched to ShotSpotter alerts.
- Council Member Bob Charland stated that his neighborhood in Kerrick was recently added to ShotSpotter. He expressed interest in learning the total citywide cost and noted that law enforcement generally considers it a “very valuable tool.” He acknowledged receiving conflicting reports and said he checked with the Office of Municipal Investigations (OMI), whose facts “don’t bear out” Warwick’s claim that many arrests were for unrelated offenses. He said he looked forward to digging into the facts and would speak further with Director Williams and the former acting chief.
Key Outcomes
- No votes were held; the meeting was recessed via a motion by Council Member Warwick, seconded by another member.
- Warwick indicated she would attempt to secure representatives from ShotSpotter (now known as Sound Thinking Inc.) for a future meeting.
- The council agreed to reconvene the discussion at a later date, with no specific timeline announced.
Meeting Transcript
All right, good afternoon. Welcome to Pittsburgh City Council's cable cast post agenda on ShotSpotter for February 24th, 2026. For the record, we are joined today by Council Member Strasberger. And I think that's it, yes? Yeah. I think so. Um okay. Great. So today this is this meeting today is not going to go as expected, unfortunately. Um but I did just want to um list so we have some invited guests who are all here, and I want to say thank you to everybody who who has joined the meeting. So we have Pittsburgh Bureau of Police uh Chief Jason Landau, Public Safety Director Sheldon Williams, controller Rachel Heitzler, uh Chief Audit Officer Lee Ajang, am I saying that right? Yes, thank you. Uh Office of Public Safety Technology Manager Dan Shaq, EMS Chief America Gilcrest, and we have Carissa Davenport, the assistant public defender for complex litigation, as well as Andrew Sherman, also assistant public defender for complex litigation. Umfortunately, so well, first of all, I'll start off by saying that uh the reason that we're here today is that our shot spotter contract is up for renewal soon, right here at the city of Pittsburgh. Um there has obviously been lots of controversy around ShotSpotter around the country. Um and here in Pittsburgh, we have spent um nearly $10 million to date on this product. Oh, we're also joined by um Councilman Bob Charland. Um so I obviously we had our list of guests, and I had and I had hoped to have our guests from the public defender's office. But um but unfortunately, our uh county partners uh were taken were we wanted to have a little bit more time to understand a little bit more clearly the information that the public defenders were planning on presenting, and uh one just wanted to understand that better uh before authorizing um that they join this meeting today. Um so obviously frustrating. This is a meeting that we have been trying to organize for a very long time. I'd say close to nine months. Um it's it's been a while. So this is last year and this year. Um the good news is is that it has given me uh some time to um really deep dive into both the the report by controller Heitzler, uh the slides from our public defenders, um, and some of the numbers that were sent over by from by the Bureau of Police. Um what I can say um definitively is that across the country, so New York City, Chicago, Pasadena, Newark, and also here in Pittsburgh, that shot spotter alerts have led officers to the scene where there has been no report, no arrest, basically nothing to find in 70 to 90 percent of the time in in all of those places. Um yet uh in contrast, the number of gunshot calls since the implementation of ShotSpotter has skyrocketed, right? So, you know, before ShotSpotter, so like 2018, you know, just you back when we just had 911, there would be about 2,000 calls roughly. Um, and then in 2021, uh, where it was really at its peak, there are more than 3,000 calls. So that's a 50% increase in calls, with the understanding that 70 to 90 percent of those calls are not leading to anything. Um 2019 to 2025, the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police responded to 10,000 shot spotter calls with with no report. Um, response time is faster. It's about five minutes faster, right? From the report, and and presumably that's the time that it takes an individual to talk to the 911 operator, right? And and get that transmitted. So there is certainly a faster response time, but with so many calls leading to no report. You sort of have to ask yourself response time to what. Uh we do not have data on um calls that had a 911 and a shot spotter. And uh we do not have data on calls that led to the discovery of a victim, because that is the argument, right? That that shot spotter helps us get there faster if there's a victim, if there's someone who has been injured, right? We can get there faster, about five minutes faster from a shot spotter alert, but we don't have any data on whether on the the victims that we have gotten to, if it was shot spotter that was the thing that got us there quickly or not. So that data is not available. Um we also know that from 2018 to 2023, uh of the 237 arrests from ShotSpotter, less than half, less than half were related to gun crimes. So that means that someone was arrested, but not related to a shooting, but for something else, which you know leads to concerns of shot spotter bringing officers into a neighborhood and then you know arresting someone for something that actually is not the reason that they were there in the first place. So lots of questions raised. Um and I do want to have this is a really important conversation that we need to have as a city before we renew this contract. And um again, I am thank you so much to everybody who is here today. Um and I really apologize that we are not able to move forward, but I think that it is important that we move forward with all the information. And in the meantime, I am also going to try to see if we can get ShotSpotter to join, you know, like representatives from the company to join us. I or I guess it's actually um Sound Thinking Inc.
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