Shot Spotter

BAB358 / SEPTEMBER 2017
ShotSpotter: Public Safety, IoT, and Big Data

“One of the most interesting and positive uses I have seen of Big Data and
analytics technology is ShotSpotter.”—Bernard Marr, Forbes Magazine1
In August 2016, Ralph Clark, CEO of SST, Inc., a company that provided its customers with a
scalable and reliable gunfire alert system, reflected on the growth of the company. Clark, who
joined SST in 2010, had overseen a change in the company’s business model and had encouraged
the establishment of strategic partnerships in the Smart City arena. As he looked to the future,
Clark wondered what actions should be taken to foster the continued growth of the company.
Company Overview
In August 2016, SST had two products: ShotSpotter Flex and SecureCampus. Both products
leveraged proprietary acoustic surveillance technology that used sensors and software to detect
shots fired. SST possessed 33 patents resulting from nearly two decades of innovation in the area
of acoustic gunshot location technology.2
ShotSpotter Flex customers consisted of over 90 police departments/municipalities. When a

customer subscribed to the service, SST installed sensors on light poles or rooftops to detect shots
fired. The software employed sophisticated classification algorithms to weed out sounds that were
not gunshots.3 When the system triangulated the location of a shot, a specially trained technician
at SST headquarters listened to the audio clip to confirm that it was gunfire; if confirmed, the
technician then pushed a button to send an alert to the police department, within one minute of
the shot being fired. SST guaranteed that the sensors could locate a gunshot within a 25-meter
radius. One police chief noted that on average, the ShotSpotter sensors notified the department
of gunshots five minutes faster than calls to 911; but many times, there was no call to 911.
1 http://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2016/05/23/shotspotter-an-amazing-big-data-use-case-to-tackle-gun-
crime/#7ed40b38324e, October 2016.
2 Paraphrased from http://www.shotspotter.com/system/content-uploads/SST-CorporateOverview_2016.pdf, July
2016.
3 Samara Lynn, “NYPD Rolls Out Tech from African American-Led Company to Fight Gun Violence,” Black
Enterprise Magazine, (July/August 2016): 29–30.
This case was prepared by Donna Stoddard, Professor of Technology, Operations, and Information Management, at
Babson College. It was developed as a basis for class discussion rather than to illustrate either effective or ineffective
handling of an administrative situation. It is not intended to serve as an endorsement, source of primary data or
illustration of effective or ineffective management.
Copyright © 2017 Babson College and licensed for publication to Harvard Business Publishing. All rights reserved.
No part of this publication can be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior
written permission of Babson College.
This document is authorized for use only in Prof. A Sreejith's Business Intelligence and Big Data. at Indian Institute of Management - Kozhikode from Jun 2022 to Dec 2022.
BAB358 - SEPTEMBER 2017
Clark noted,
The alert shows up in our Incident Response Center (IRC) as a dot on a map, along with
other metadata including round count and type of firearm. An audio clip and metadata are
reviewed by our specially trained acoustic reviewers. Once they are comfortable that the
sound is a gunshot, they push a button and, through the Internet, an alert will pop-up for
someone monitoring at a [police] dispatch center or in a patrol car. The information sent
to the police department is organized as a screen. On the right is a map with a dot on it,
and on the left is all the metadata. When the police arrive on the scene, they know what to
expect, for example the type of firearm used, the number of rounds shot, whether there
are one or more shooters, and if the shooters are on the move, the direction they are going.
ShotSpotter investor, Gary Lauder noted, “ShotSpotter is a compelling example of an

implementation of the Internet of Things (IoT). However, SST existed before that term was
coined.”
SST also offered SecureCampus, a system designed to detect gunshot within buildings. According
to the company website,
SecureCampus is like a fire alarm in an active shooter situation: fire alarms don't
prevent fires but can offer a life-saving time advantage in the rare event a fire
breaks out. That time advantage can mitigate the damage and save lives.
SecureCampus technology immediately alerts the police and also provides police
with critical real time information such as an interior floor plan with how many
and where the shots were fired.4
Robert Showen, PhD, came up with the idea for ShotSpotter while working as a research scientist
in the radio and acoustic technology area at Stanford Research Institute in the early 1990s.
Showen explained,
I was working at Stanford Research Institute, which was located close to East Palo
Alto, a city ridden with drug trafficking. I was convinced that radio and acoustic
technology could be deployed to help police departments identify the location of
gun shots being fired, real-time. I created a prototype and did a proof of concept
test in 1994.
By 2016, Showen had been issued nine patents for SST’s innovative ShotSpotter technology. In
total, SST’s solutions were protected by thirty-three patents and had other domestic and foreign
patents pending. In 2014, Showen was recognized by Silicon Valley Intellectual Property Law
Association (SVIPLA) as “Inventor of the Year,” for his invention of the SST ShotSpotter gunshot
detection location technology.
In August 2016, SST was a privately held company and backed by investors, including City Light
Capital, Claremont Creek Ventures, Labrador Ventures, Lauder Partners, Levensohn Venture
Partners, Motorola Solutions, and Norwest Venture Partners. According to Black Enterprise, the
company had $67.9 million in total equity funding.5 The members of the management team and
board of directors appear in Exhibit 1. SST had global installations in North America, Central
America, and South America and covered more than 300 square miles in over 90 U.S. urban and
4http://www.shotspotter.com/secure-campus, July 2016.

5Samara Lynn, “NYPD Rolls Out Tech from African American-Led Company to Fight Gun Violence,” Black
Enterprise Magazine, (July/August 2016): 29–30.
suburban geographic areas. Exhibit 2 shows the cities that had ShotSpotter installed as of August
2016.
Gun Violence: The Problem

Gun violence is a big problem in many major cities. For example, by Labor Day 2016, Chicago,
Illinois, had over 500 homicides, more than New York and Los Angeles combined. The Chicago
Police Department planned to expand its use of ShotSpotter technology. According to the Chicago
Sun Times,
In 2016, ShotSpotter Flex sensors were installed in 3 square miles of the city in the
Englewood District on the South Side and the Harrison District on the West Side. The city
plans to increase the coverage to more than 13 1/2 square miles at a first-year cost of about
$940,000. “Those two districts will be completely covered,” Chicago Police Deputy Chief
Jonathan Lewin said. “We think this will improve first responder safety and awareness.”
Further, Chief police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said the additional technology is a
“force multiplier” that will better allow the department to put cops where they’re needed
right away. He said the department hopes the extra sensors will also help improve
community relations in those two police districts because officers will respond more
quickly to shootings there.6
According to SST, less than 80% of shots fired are reported to the police.7 The New York Police
Department, which piloted the system in 2015, found that 75% to 80% of gunfire incidents in New
York went unreported to 911.8 Without the data that SST collects and analyzes, cities use homicide
rates and non-fatal injuries to approximate the number of shots fired, a measure that vastly
underreports the level of gun violence. For example, the Washington Post reported the following:9
In Canton, Ohio, one of the most common complaints that police chief Bruce Lawver hears
is about gunfire. Shots fired. That unnerving pop of a firearm being discharged.
Last year, at least 772 bullets were fired in one tiny part of Canton, a city of 73,000 people.
That is more than two bullets every day. Yet, either by luck or intent, relatively few of these
projectiles hit anyone. Gunfire across the entire city of Canton resulted in eight homicides,
11 suicides, and 25 non-fatal injuries in 2015, according to police statistics. This is how
gun violence is usually measured—in the cold calculation of deaths and injuries. But that
familiar yardstick misses a lot. It does not account for all the times when a gun is fired in
anger, fear, [to celebrate] or by accident and the bullet simply misses its mark. Yet
whether a bullet kills or injures someone is an almost random outcome from a violent act.
It is influenced by the shooter’s aim, if the bullet happens to strike vital organs, and even
how far a victim must travel to reach a hospital trauma center.
6 http://chicago.suntimes.com/news/chicago-police-to-expand-use-of-shotspotter-gunshot-sensors/ September
2016.
7 http://www.shotspotter.com/law-enforcement, accessed August 2016.
8 http://www.blackenterprise.com/technology/nypd-rolls-tech-african-american-led-company-fight-gun-violence/,
September 2016
9 “This may be the best way to measure gun violence in America,” The Washington Post, April 26, 2016,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/04/23/this-may-be-the-best-way-to-measure-gun-
violence-in-america/?utm_term=.c6519823cc6f.
“Homicide rate is just not the whole picture,” said Jennifer Doleac, an assistant professor
of public policy at the University of Virginia, who studies the connection between gunfire
and crime. “There’s a lot more gun violence than what is reflected in homicide rates.”
The more telling number about gun violence might be “shots fired.” And now thanks to
broader adoption of new technologies, it is getting easier to show just how common gun
violence is in America.
The Evolution of the ShotSpotter Business Model

When the company was started in the late 1990s, SST sold systems to police departments;
customers had to pay for the hardware, software, and maintenance. When Clark arrived at the
company, which had been around for more than a decade, SST had only 30 customers. The
systems cost about $250,000 per square mile to install; maintenance and operations, also
handled by the cities, could total up to $40,000 a year. Clark noted, “From a police department
point of view, ShotSpotter was a significant and risky IT project.”10
Showen explained.
When Ralph joined the company, he led our shift from selling computers and sensors to
selling a service. Today, we are a service business. We own the hardware and have an
Incident Response Center (IRC) at our headquarters in Newark, California, that is staffed
24x7. Our technology can do a good job of detecting shots; but trained humans can do an
even better job.
Clark switched the business model to a subscription model that required a minimum coverage
area of three square miles. SST performs the installation of the sensors, operates the system, and
charges a minimum annual fee of $65,000 per square mile for the service (plus a $10,000
installation fee). According to Clark, “The minimum of the three-mile coverage area is important
because more coverage leads to better results and a greater likelihood of a city renewing its
subscription.”11 In 2016, 97% of clients renewed each year.
The IRC looks like a high-technology air traffic control center. The technicians monitoring the
IRC have multiple screens that provide them with maps, acoustic waves, audio of the shots, and
other metadata about the incident that they can push to the police department once they confirm
that a shot was fired. Exhibit 3 provides a photo of the IRC setup.
By 2016, the ShotSpotter solution included sensors—essentially small computers with a

microphone and a GPS with a synchronized clock—which are running Linux and proprietary
software. The Flex solution takes advantage of cellular networks to transmit data from a sensor to
one of SST’s two datacenters. Scott Beisner explained, “Each sensor has software, hardware, a
modem, and a GPS. The sensors are tuned to hear impulsive sound. Gun Shots are very loud,
150–170 decibels, so they are easy for our sensors to detect.”
Beisner continued,
10 Harvard Alumni Magazine, https://www.alumni.hbs.edu/stories/Pages/story-impact.aspx?num=5555.

11 Ibid.
This is a great example of the use of Big Data to change policing. Over time, departments
can see the location of hot spots and make data-driven decisions as to where to deploy
officers. For example, if the department notices that shots are fired frequently at a
particular address, they can investigate. Even celebratory gun fire is dangerous. The
bullets and casings eventually come down and can hurt people.
One of the challenges that SST faced was the selling cycle challenge. The decision maker could be
the mayor, police chief, and/or the city council. Sonya Strickler, ShotSpotter Vice President of
Finance noted, “Our solution is unique so we do not have any direct competitors for ShotSpotter
Flex. But there is significant competition for the dollars that the cities must commit and no one
wants a failed IT project on their watch.”
When a city or municipality signs up for the ShotSpotter service, SST deploys the sensors on light
poles or on the top of buildings (see Exhibit 4). According to Paul Ames, SST Senior Vice
President of Products and Technology, “We like to deploy the sensors as high as we can so that we
can minimize false positives. Gun shots are very loud and have specific acoustic characteristics.”
Ames continued:
When we deploy the systems, we will build out a network of sensors and there will be 15
to 20 sensors per square mile, although in the case of a city like New York, we may have
20 to 25 sensors per square mile in certain locations. We try to space the sensors out so
that at least three sensors will be able to hear shots fired; the sensor is designed to ignore
everything else.
The most important components of the sensor are the microphone and the GPS; with the
audio clip, we can determine the type of gun and the number of shooters. The GPS gives
us the location and the time, down to the millisecond.
Data about a loud noise that could be a gunshot is sent to one of the SST datacenters. Software
analyzes the sound wave from multiple sensors to determine if it is likely a gunshot; it also
triangulates the data to consider time of arrival of the sound and the angle of arrival to figure out
the location and direction of the perpetrator, if he or she is moving. According to Ames, SST stores
roughly 1MB of data per event. This includes relational data, unstructured data, and audio
snippets. For every event that is classified as a gunshot (machine and human classification)
approximately three events are classified as “other” (non-gunshot). All events are retained and
used for classifier training.
If the system concludes that the noise is gunfire, a specially trained technician in the IRC listens
to a short clip of the gunshot and looks at the graph of the soundwave. If the technician concurs
that it is gunfire, a message is sent to the police within 45 seconds of the incident. The message
tells the police department the time and location of the incident and the type of weapon(s) fired.
In areas where ShotSpotter is installed, 100% of shots fired are reported to the police. Researchers
examined gunshots detected in Washington, DC, neighborhoods equipped with ShotSpotter. They
found that between 2006 and 2013, prior to the installation of ShotSpotter only one in eight
gunfire incidents led to a 911 call for “shots fired” in the covered areas.12 When the police respond
12Washington Post, April 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/04/23/this-may-be-

the-best-way-to-measure-gun-violence-in-america/?utm_term=.172f2f7faf9c.
to a shots-fired notification, even if the shooter is gone, their swift arrival may save a life. Further,
they can collect shell casings and use that evidence to trace a weapon.
In addition to getting police quickly to the scene when shots are fired, which may save a life and
lead to the apprehension of the perpetrator, another benefit of ShotSpotter Flex is improved
relations between the police and residents of areas besieged with gun violence. When police
respond quickly, residents feel the police care, and may therefore be more willing to cooperate
with them.
Community policing differs from traditional policing in how the community is
perceived and in its expanded policing goals. While crime control and prevention
remain central priorities, community policing strategies use a wide variety of
methods to address these goals. The police and the community become partners in
addressing problems of disorder and neglect (e.g., gang activity, abandoned cars,
and broken windows) that, although perhaps not criminal, can eventually lead to
serious crime. As links between the police and the community are strengthened
over time, the ensuing partnership will be better able to pinpoint and mitigate the
underlying causes of crime.13
The ShotSpotter Gunfire Index

Since 2013, ShotSpotter has published a National Gun Fire Index. They reported that in 2015 the
62 cities that had their system installed for the year saw an average of 34.7% decrease in gunfire
incident volume in the first two years of ShotSpotter use.
In the SST National Gunfire Index report, Clark noted:

2015 has been a remarkable year for reduced gun violence in the United States. While
many cities reported an uptick in reported homicides, the results of our gunfire index
[highlight] the fact that many cities and regions have experienced a significant reduction
in gunfire. These cities are demonstrating measureable declines in shooting incidents with
comprehensive focused deterrents leveraging people, process, and technology. We are
very proud to be a part of these positive trends in disrupting the new normal of gun
violence.14
The SST 2015 National Gunfire Index also found that SST reviewed and published 54,700
incidents of gunfire in 2015, which translated into 165,500 shots fired. New Year’s Eve, New Year’s
Day, and July 4th are the busiest days for “celebratory gunfire.” Excluding those days, the busiest
day was December 25th, with 266 incidents, 39 in one city. Exhibit 5 summarizes SST analysis of
their 2015 gunfire data.
13 https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles/commp.pdf, page 4, accessed August 2016.

14 SST 2015 National Gunfire Index, March 2016.
Next Steps
By August 2016, ShotSpotter Flex was deployed in over 300 square miles in 90 cities across the
US. Clark noted, “We think there’s probably a need in about 1,000 cities in the US and around the
globe.” He continued:
We’ve got the opportunity to be deployed in more cities, working with more agencies,
[and] helping agencies develop more effective gun violence abatement strategies. The
technology is invented. . . . so we have the opportunity to spend much more of our time
with outcomes—how you respond, how you investigate. We are moving up the food chain
to that level. We consider ourselves, frankly, gun violence abatement consultants.
In early 2016, SST announced a partnership with GE, where ShotSpotter Sensors will be
integrated into every “intelligent” LED streetlight that GE installs around the world. That means
SST would no longer incur installation costs; rather, if a city has the GE lights, it would simply
have to subscribe to the ShotSpotter Flex offering. Clark noted, “We [would] just have to flip a
switch.15 Board member and investor Randy Hawks continued:
I am very excited about our collaboration with GE. ShotSpotter is well positioned to be
part of the backbone of the Smart Cities movement. And that may lead to another
significant change to the Shot Spotter business model.
As Clark looked forward, he wondered what additional steps he should take to further expand
ShotSpotter’s reach.
15 Harvard Alumni Magazine, https://www.alumni.hbs.edu/stories/Pages/story-impact.aspx?num=5555.
Exhibit 1
Company Leadership
Ralph Clark: President and CEO

Paul Ames: Senior Vice President, Products and Technology
Joe Hawkins: Senior Vice President, Operations
Damaune Journey: Vice President, Security Solutions
Douglas A. McFarlin: Vice President, Engineering
David P. Rodgers: Vice President, Operational Engineering
Sonya L. Strickler: Vice President, Finance and Controller
Board of Directors
Ralph Clark: President and CEO, Shot Spotter

Tom Groos: Partner, City Light Capital
Randy Hawks: Managing Director, Claremont Creek Ventures
Gary Lauder: Managing Director, Lauder Partners
Marc Morial: President and CEO of the National Urban League
Pascal Levensohn: Managing Partner, Levensohn Venture Partners
Exhibit 2
Customers in 2016
Source: SST; reprinted with permission.
Exhibit 3
10
Exhibit 4
Source:http://www.shotspotter.com/system/content-
ploads/mediakit/ShotSpotter_Sensor_Diagram.jpg, October 2016.
11
Exhibit 5
12

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BAB358 / SEPTEMBER 2017

ShotSpotter: Public Safety, IoT, and Big Data

ShotSpotter Flex customers consisted of over 90 police departments/municipalities. When a

Enterprise Magazine, (July/August 2016): 29–30.

ShotSpotter investor, Gary Lauder noted, “ShotSpotter is a compelling example of an

4http://www.shotspotter.com/secure-campus, July 2016.

Gun Violence: The Problem

The Evolution of the ShotSpotter Business Model

By 2016, the ShotSpotter solution included sensors—essentially small computers with a

10 Harvard Alumni Magazine, https://www.alumni.hbs.edu/stories/Pages/story-impact.aspx?num=5555.

12Washington Post, April 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/04/23/this-may-be-

The ShotSpotter Gunfire Index

In the SST National Gunfire Index report, Clark noted:

13 https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles/commp.pdf, page 4, accessed August 2016.

15 Harvard Alumni Magazine, https://www.alumni.hbs.edu/stories/Pages/story-impact.aspx?num=5555.

Ralph Clark: President and CEO

Ralph Clark: President and CEO, Shot Spotter

Source: SST; reprinted with permission.

Source: SST; reprinted with permission.

Source: SST; reprinted with permission.

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