March 7, 2008
Did You Hear It?
After their American Idol hour was unforgivably interrupted by the San Francisco Police Department making an announcement last night, a reader writes to SFist asking:
At about 8:55pm tonight, my viewing of American Idol was disrupted by the SFPD making an announcement in the middle of our street that there will be several rounds of LIVE AMMUNITION fired in the next few minutes as they test a new gun fire detection system. I live in Silver Terrace on a decidedly working class, residential street with a lot of families with little kids. Has anyone heard about this new gun fire detection system? Or why the SFPD chose about 9pm on a Thursday night to test it?
Word is that it's all a part of a curious new technology system the police department is using that will "relay gunshot locations directly to patrol cars." The wireless sensors dotting the Bayview district will be able to pinpoint not only the location of gunfire, but the type of gun as well. Fancy, indeed. The system will cost the city a cool $400,000, and will be put to use in the Western Addition come April.
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Finally. Now if they had helicopters again they might actually catch some shooters.
could they link the taxis to this, too?
We already have a gunshot detection system in most well-wire neighborhoods (too bad the Wi-Fi thing got stuck in the mud - but we can try again on our own with www.fon.com .... er, back to my post....), and it is called Yelp Talk.
When stuff happens in public, it seems to often find itself posted on Yelp's talk threads for San Francisco.
Save the money and allow regular, sane citizens to take a gun safety class and carry their own firearm - or at least make criminals THINK that we all pack pistols of the lethal variety.
Since these gunshot locators , I can only interpret this as psychological warfare against potential shooters. The panopticon is your friend!
Can I get a version that will let me know when DPT is making its rounds and ticketing vehicles?
Doesn't Oakland already have this?
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.04/shotspotter.html
As to the time of day they're testing it, it's probably appropriate for them to do it during similar noise conditions to when guns are fired, i.e., it makes no sense to test this during the height of a noisy rush hour if that's not the usual time that people are firing guns.
The ambient noise might be much different between 4pm and 9pm, plus there might be specific trade winds during certain times of the day that affect how sound carries.
And they are doing this so that the cops can drive in the other direction to avoid getting hit or avoid the 911 calls that regularly come in from the Mission and Bayview?
RobinSF: Totally. I saw four police cars parked in front of Happy Donuts in Noe Valley a week or so ago.