Wichita police officers will soon start getting alerts from gunshot sensors after the City Council approved buying and expanding sensors the department has been testing since February 2022.
Police also received approval to expand their license plate reader program that started in November 2020.
Atlanta-based Flock Safety makes both devices, which police say they will use to solve crimes.
Based on testing so far, police say about 83% of gunshots go unreported. The goal is to make sure police respond to all gunshots.
The department had been testing 144 gunshot sensors in two square miles in City Council Districts 1 and 3; the plan now is to buy those sensors and add more to cover two more square miles that will also include coverage in District 6.
Police began using the license plate readers, which also record vehicle types, a few years ago.
The department now uses a mix of 167 public and private license plate readers. WPD will now add 31 more license plate readers.
Ten of the new license plate readers were purchased under a five-year agreement at a cost of $151,500. The other 21 and the gunshot sensors cost $186,150 for two years. Those dollars will come out of $2.15 million in federal grants that WPD received to do a real-time crime center.
That center, which will allow a central area for WPD to oversee all its technologies, is currently in progress.
Capt. Aaron Moses, who presented to the council, didn’t know what amount from the grants was used for the gunshot sensors. He told the council that another funding source would be needed after those agreements expire. Finding more grant dollars could be an option, he said.
Moses, in the phone interview, said police are still working on drawing up a policy for use of the gunshot sensors before police officials get alerts on them.
Early in his tenure that started in November 2022, chief Joe Sullivan said the gunshot sensors were not working up to a level he would consider adopting them. Later on, he said they improved greatly after technology upgrades by Flock.
Earlier this year, a Flock spokesperson said the gunshot sensors also now record screeching tires and the plan was to add breaking glass and even a saw noise , possibly indicating a catalytic converter theft. It’s unclear whether any of those features will be added in Wichita.
Opponents of this type of technology worry about the sensors recording things like conversations, which has happened and led to arrests in homicide cases in California and Massachusetts . A Flock spokesperson previously told The Eagle it could capture voices if they were screaming. Police said they will say general areas where the sensors will be but not specific sites, because that could lead to the sensors being vandalized.
Police say the license plate readers have helped them recover at least $5.4 million worth of stolen property. The cameras also have helped WPD solve multiple homicides and abducted persons cases.
When it comes to the license plate readers, Moses told the council that police have a “strong policy that Flock has actually started to talk to other agencies regarding our policy on auditing and our policy on requirements for the system.”
He said police need a case number or, if it’s an ongoing incident, a general location and what type of call to do a search with the cameras.
Flock, which has license plates readers in 4,000-plus cities across the country , previously said that the first incident ever of an officer abusing the system happened when a then-Kechi lieutenant used WPD’s license plate readers to stalk his estranged wife. Police discovered that only because his wife complained about feeling like she was being followed based on the texts he sent her.
The second publicly reported incident of an officer misusing the cameras happened in Sedgwick, Kansas, when the then-chief used them to follow his ex-girlfriend .
WPD’s cameras were searched more than 2,270 times in the last 30 days , according to a transparency portal the company set up after the first incident involving the Kechi officer.
When asked earlier this year if it was possible to scrutinize every police search to make sure it was done for an actual investigation, Wichita police Lt. Brian Safris said: “That’s not even possible.”
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