By Matt Sepic, KWMU
St. Louis – The St. Louis Police Department has installed a new gunshot detection system in a high-crime neighborhood on the north side.
The ShotSpotter system uses microphones to triangulate the exact location of gunfire. Within 15 seconds it puts that information on a computer map at the dispatch center.
Police Chief Joe Mokwa said the department is testing ShotSpotter in the Wells-Goodfellow neighborhood. He said people there reported gunshots more than 2,900 times last year.
"We're targeting the Wells-Goodfellow neighborhood because they had 14 homicides last year," Mokwa said. "So we really tried to pick a neighborhood that needed support. And we wanted to keep the pilot project small enough so we could make a good evaluation."
The system was paid for with a $250,000 dollar federal grant. Mokwa said if it works, he hopes to install it elsewhere in the city.
The system is already up and running in other cities, including Washington and Chicago.