Melinda Hamilton doesn鈥檛 deny there鈥檚 a need to tackle high crime rates in her southeast Fort Worth neighborhood near South Riverside Drive. After all, she lost her daughter to a there nearly six years ago.
She also lost her brother and grandson to gun violence.
With , the city of Fort Worth and Fort Worth鈥檚 police department are considering adding gunshot detection technology in conjunction with smart streetlights and already existing to help lower crime rates in .
In response, she founded , a nonprofit that advocates for victims and assists families who have suffered from gun violence.
鈥淚t鈥檚 really horrible. People just don鈥檛 know what all goes on until something like this happens to them,鈥� Hamilton said.
There are concerns about the technology鈥檚 potential mass surveillance capabilities and placing them in communities where trust in law enforcement is already low.
鈥淚 think the money is to be used elsewhere,鈥� Hamilton said. 鈥淵ou鈥檙e invading people鈥檚 privacy, and that鈥檚 against the law.鈥�
For Deputy Chief David Carabajal, who oversees the police department鈥檚 tactical command unit, this is another way to combat crime while leaving residents and bystanders untouched.
鈥淎 big part of what we do in fighting crime here in the city is putting our attention directly toward the people that are committing crimes,鈥� Carabajal said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 able to make it to where we can acutely focus our resources towards where we believe (the gunshots are) coming from, and it saves manpower as well.鈥�
This gunshot detection technology will be installed on what the department describes as smart streetlights.
Preliminary deployment of this technology will be in Stop Six, South Riverside near Cobb Park, Historic Northside west of the Stockyards, Rosemont near Rosemont Park and Las Vegas Trail between Cherry Lane and Las Vegas Trail.
There are about 69,000 streetlights in the city. The goal is to eventually install the technology on every streetlight in Fort Worth.
Increased safety to boost redevelopment
Council member Michael Crain, who oversees the Las Vegas Trail area as part of his district, said this is part of a larger effort to make residents in that community feel safe as the city continues revitalization efforts.
鈥淭his is a real neighborhood. There are people that live in those apartments that call it home, that have lived there for many years and they want to be safe,鈥� Crain said. 鈥淎ny tools that we can provide as a city, we should be doing. That鈥檚 our responsibility as leaders, to make sure that people feel safe.鈥�
The two companies considered for the technology are Flock and ACOEM, according to a .
Both options are part of a larger suite of emerging technologies employed by police departments in large cities across the country, said , associate dean of graduate studies and criminal justice professor at Texas Christian University.
鈥淭his is a response to the rise of violent crime. With the shortage of police officers everywhere, they鈥檙e looking for ways to increase the efficiency of the staffing,鈥� said Nhan, who is also a reserve officer for the Fort Worth Police Department.
Technology like gunshot detection, working in conjunction with cameras, can help enhance police鈥檚 ability to track leads, Nhan said. But it still requires officers to monitor and verify information that comes in.
鈥淚t鈥檚 just one part of a solution to crime,鈥� Nhan said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not the solution.鈥�
Carabajal said the department is more than likely going to move forward with both companies since each offers a different purpose.
鈥淚t鈥檚 really two different tools as opposed to which one is better,鈥� he said. 鈥淏ut certainly as we implement the technology, if there鈥檚 one that really stands out among the other 鈥� whether it鈥檚 an efficiency, cost and ease of implementation 鈥� we may lean towards that. But, as of now, we鈥檙e looking at them as two separate tools.鈥�
The police department is looking to purchase the technology through a Texas Anti-Gang grant, according to the informal city report presented to City Council earlier in May.
The Flock system will cost $50,000 per square mile of coverage for two years. The coverage area is around four square miles. Funds from the Las Vegas Trail Neighborhood Improvement Project funds will provide an additional square mile of coverage and more cameras and license plate recognition cameras to support that technology.
ACOEM鈥檚 system will cost over $74,000 for two years and can cover around 500 feet at a time.
鈥淚 offered that (the police) use the (Las Vegas Trail) area to try out and test the technology to see if it works before we make a major investment,鈥� Crain said.
Experts, residents cite privacy, surveillance concerns
The use of technology like cameras and gunshot detectors is not uncommon. Similar initiatives, namely from a company called SoundThinking, formerly ShotSpotter, can be seen in and . In Chicago, SoundThinking鈥檚 gunshot detection technology came under heavy fire from communities of color, .
While the two companies Fort Worth鈥檚 police are exploring are not the same as the ones in Houston, San Antonio or even Chicago, one of them, Flock, has been described by the American Civil Liberties Union as
鈥淭hese types of technologies can become the eyes and ears of law enforcement, but are invisible in the communities where they are placed,鈥� said Savannah Kumar, an attorney with ACLU. 鈥淚t can be used to ensnare people into the criminal legal system.鈥�
Kumar cited concerns about gunshot detectors triggering false alarms, providing inaccurate leads and increasing instances of stop and frisks.
鈥淭here are serious questions of transparency about the technology, accuracy and fairness, and really thinking about 鈥業s that a community that we want to live in and feel safe in when there are these privacy violations and surveillance technologies being utilized by the police,鈥欌�� Kumar said.
Nhan is currently working on a book about the role technology plays in addressing crime alongside other academics. Because the technology is so new, there is limited data publicly available to scholars to determine how successful this technology is in tackling crime.
Best practices and policies regarding the usage of this tool are still under development which means ramifications are not yet fully understood, Nhan said.
鈥淭here are some valid concerns like, 鈥楬ey, is this over-policing?鈥欌�� Nhan said. 鈥淭hat is a slippery slope to what we鈥檝e been warned about for decades with novels like 1984. 鈥� It is unexplored territory.鈥�
Crain told the Fort Worth Report that this is just the first test of the technology and will determine how and whether the city moves forward.
鈥淲e don鈥檛 know that it works. The engineers are going to have to tell you that but we already have some cameras we鈥檙e just getting integrated into the system,鈥� the councilmember said. 鈥淲e need to understand what the parameters of the technology look like and how we might, from there, ensure that it does the best job for the residents.鈥�
But residents like Hamilton who have lost family to gun violence don鈥檛 think it will do enough to stop it.
鈥淭he city (and police) needs to be more transparent and get out in the community to help the community do things,鈥� Hamilton said. 鈥淵ou want to sit up here and put all your money into cameras and all these things 鈥� that鈥檚 not gonna help anybody. 鈥� They鈥檙e still going to shoot each other.鈥�
The question of surveillance and safety comes down to balance, Nhan said.
鈥淣obody, whether they鈥檙e poor or minority, wants high violence where they live. They don鈥檛 want to live with a fear of crime,鈥� Nhan said. 鈥淚 think they do need to give up a little bit of that freedom. New houses and new developments do take crime into account.鈥�
Sandra Sadek is a Report for America corps member, covering growth for the Fort Worth Report. You can contact her at sandra.sadek@fortworthreport.org or on Twitter at .
At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.