Columbus City Council to consider adding ShotSpotter detection for Wedgewood Apartments
Peter Gill
The Columbus City Council on Monday will consider approving funding to install a new ShotSpotter gunfire detector to cover the area around the Wedgewood Village Apartments, the Hilltop apartment complex where 13-year-old Sinzae Reed was fatally shot in October and where gun violence is tragically common.
The proposal before the City Council would authorize Public Safety Director Robert Clark to modify an existing contract with ShotSpotter, Inc. to expand the current coverage area of the gunfire detection, alert and analysis program by 0.64 square miles in the Wedgewood Village vicinity, for a cost of $44,800.
ShotSpotter detectors automatically alert authorities when shots are fired, which can help speed up police response to gunfire, though the technology also has drawn criticism.
The Dispatch took an in-depth look at gun violence in the Wedgewood Village complex last month. Calls to Columbus police about shots fired at the complex have increased 57% since 2019, and the number of reports about a person with a firearm have increased by 143% over the same time period.
Local resident Angelo Spaulding in January described hearing gunshots regularly in the neighborhood.
“It’s pretty much normal. It doesn’t catch you off guard anymore," he told The Dispatch. "It’s gotten to the point where you just sit down on the ground and continue watching TV.”
Previous coverage:'There's no heroes out here': Sinzae Reed's death adds to toll at Hilltop apartments
Columbus first contracted with ShotSpotter in 2018, setting aside $685,000 in the operating budget for a pilot program. The city has since expanded the program so that sensors are installed in four neighborhoods: Linden, the Hilltop, the Parsons Avenue corridor on the South Side and the Near East Side.
ShotSpotter says it works with 2,500 agencies “to drive more efficient, effective and equitable public safety outcomes, making communities healthier.” Its website claims that 179 victims were found in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 2022 because of the technology.
Zerqa Abid, a Hilliard resident and an advocate for Wedgewood residents through her organization My Project USA, said the technology could help police better help the community.
“As an organization that is very invested in the issue of gun violence, especially within the Wedgwood neighborhood, we welcome it,” she said of plans to locate a ShotSpotter there.
However, a 2021 investigation by Chicago’s inspector general raised concerns about the technology’s efficacy. The technology has received criticism from some groups for confusing gunshots for other noises, such as a door slamming or a car backfiring, which can lead to extra police encounters with civilians.
Peter Gill covers immigration and new American communities for The Dispatch in partnership with Report for America. You can support work like his with a tax-deductible donation to Report for America here:bit.ly/3fNsGaZ.
pgill@dispatch.com