Tampa renews contract with controversial gunshot detection software, without additional public comment

Tampa City Council voted to continue the city’s contract with the controversial gunshot detection software SoundThinking—formerly known as ShotSpotter—this month. But the resolution to reconsider the $280,000 contract wasn’t listed on the June 20 agenda and the public was given no additional notice the contract would be taken up again.

Councilwoman Gwen Henderson, who voted against the contract on June 6, motioned to bring the item back for reconsideration at the June 20 meeting.

Councilwoman Lynn Hurtak expressed concerns that the public wouldn’t get to comment before the vote with the change.

“Regardless of how I feel about this, the fact that we can just put something on the agenda and pass it is absolutely unconscionable,” Hurtak said.“The public had no idea and if they couldn’t be here they missed the 24-hour notice to be able to speak remotely.”

On June 6, Council voted 4-3 against renewing SoundThinking/ShotSpotter $280,0000 contract. Council members Luis Viera, Alan Clendenin, and Charlie Miranda voted against ending the contract.

At the June 20 meeting, Councilman Bill Carlson echoed Hurtak’s concerns about public comment and called SoundThinking/ShotSpotter, “a very controversial project,” saying, “the public has a right to know what’s on our agenda.”

“The public had a chance to speak on June 6,” Megan Newcomb, assistant city attorney and Tampa Police Department legal advisor, said at the meeting.

Henderson said she reconsidered her vote in the days after the June 6 meeting, when she learned that TPD responded to a SoundThinking/ShotSpotter alert and was able to locate a 17-year-old victim with a non-lethal gunshot to the leg. She also blamed her original vote on what she described as a “poor presentation,” from TPD during the Council’s June 6 discussion on the issue.

“The police officers that did the presentation didn’t do a very good job,” Henderson said last week. “I did not support it [on June 6] because the presentation didn’t provide the information the police needed to provide.”

Despite being placed on the agenda at 9 a.m. to be heard at 11:30 a.m., without additional public notice, the public had much to say about SoundThinking/ShotSpotter.

“It should not be taken up today,” Stephanie Poynor, resident and president of Tampa Homeowners Association of Neighborhoods or THAN, said at the meeting.“It should be put on a future agenda…You are not being accountable and transparent.”

Bishop Michelle Patty, who lost her son and grandson to gun violence, spoke in support of the program.

“People are being misled about ShotSpotter,” Patty said at the meeting. “It’s not about being racial, it’s about people being killed in a certain area.”

Mimi Martinez, president of the Ybor Heights Neighborhood Association and Watch Group, said the technology is needed for the area’s economic development. “If we don’t renew this contract, it’s going to be ruinous for the economic development along the Nebraska Avenue corridor,” she added.

But Yvette Lewis, president of the Hillsborough NAACP, said the community doesn’t need ShotSpotter, it needs to invest more in its residents, not TPD. “The NAACP is questioning why the city of Tampa invests in the Tampa Police Department when they're not willing to invest in residents in East Tampa,” Lewis said at the June 20 meeting.

Chief Lee Bercaw stood by for nearly an hour while council debated whether or not to hear TPD’s presentation on SoundThinking/ShotSpotter. Ultimately, Clendenin threatened to pull his support of the program if additional testimony was heard.

Before withdrawing her motion to hear from TPD, Henderson stated, “when we discussed this very topic [on June 6] there was no one in the public that came forward and commented on it.”

Creative Loafing Tampa Bay reviewed transcripts from June 6, and found that at least three people, including lifelong Tampa resident Valerie Bullock, gave public comments against renewing ShotSpotter’s contract at that meeting.

“The money could be spent on something better in East Tampa, like affordable housing, or job training,” Bullock said at the June 6 meeting. “We don’t need nothing to show us where the bullet came from, we need to enforce the laws that are already there.”

Last year, CL reported on extensive data questioning the effectiveness of SoundThinking/ShotSpotter , which operates through its parent company SoundThinking.

A new report from the ACLU of Massachusetts , released in April, contends that 70% of ShotSpotter alerts answered by the Boston Police Department between 2020-2022 resulted in no evidence of gunfire. Since then, several high ranking Massachusetts officials including Senator Elizabeth Warren, wrote a letter to the Department of Homeland Security , requesting an investigation into ShotSpotter over possible violations of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

“Are you comfortable spending taxpayer dollars on something that might be a violation of the Civil Rights Act?” Hurtak said.

SoundThinking CEO Ralph Clark has refuted the allegations .

Hurtak’s substitute motion to divert the $280,000 in funds to hire more police officers in lieu of SoundThinking/ShotSpotter failed. Viera, who’s campaigns were endorsed by both the police and fire unions, voted against Hurtak’s measure, describing it as “voting on a fiction.”

Council voted 4-3 to approve the resolution for a contract with SoundThinking/ShotSpotter, with Hurtak, Carlson, and Councilman Guido Maniscalco voting against. The ShotSpotter contract began June 20 and will last for one year.

A Wired report showing the secret locations of ShotSpotter gunfire sensors says that, "SoundThinking equipment has been installed at more than a thousand elementary and high schools; they are perched atop dozens of billboards, scores of hospitals, and within more than a hundred public housing complexes."

Subscribe to Creative Loafing newsletters.

Follow us: Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter