A WEAPON AGAINST CRIME
Tracking the Sound of Gunfire
01/23/08






The situation was dire. A sniper was terrorizing the area around Columbus, Ohio, firing randomly at drivers and buildings near I-270 beginning in November 2003. One person had been killed, others had been wounded, and more casualties were expected unless they could find the culprit. But weeks into the joint investigation, the Franklin County Sheriff’s Department and the FBI still had no solid leads.

Finally, during a strategy session with our law enforcement partners, FBI Supervisory Special Agent Ron Chavarro offered a possible solution—a private sector technology called ShotSpotter that he’d overheard others talking about at a conference.

ShotSpotter, he explained, is a new crime-fighting tool that helps locate and track gunfire using “acoustic triangulationâ€