Editorial: "Shots Fired"

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Editorial / Amnesia File

"Shots Fired"

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(Dec. 31, 2015) -- On Dec. 29 and Dec. 30, the Long Beach Police Dept. issued a release stating in part, "Residents are strongly encouraged to report gunfire along with any other suspicious or criminal activity they see occurring..." It adds: "Most 9-1-1 calls from cell phones in Long Beach are directed to the Communications Center, however, callers may wish to save the Communications Dispatch Phone Line, (562) 435-6711, to their contact list as an alternate number..."

But smarter cities handle shootings using ShotSpotter, a high tech system that combines acoustic and digital technologies to nearly immediately triangulate and locate the site of "shots-fired." It lets officers converge on the area immediately, speeding responses with a greater likelihood of catching the shooter(s) before they shoot again.

To see how the company describes its system and results for a number of cities, click here.

[Scroll down for further.]

While LB's Mayor tries to link himself with digital high tech to try and look good, in our opinion he and the entire LB City Council look bad for letting L.A. County's second largest city enter 2016 by responding to gunfire in basically the same way as it was done in the previous century.

Under LB's current system, if a LB resident happens to hear shots, and takes the time and trouble to call 911 (not everyone does), they reach an intake person. The intake person inputs verbally conveyed information into a computer where it reaches dispatcher. The dispatcher then broadcasts an announcement on a police radio channel, something like "415 shots [disturbance/unknown cause], street location, one caller so far." If other residents happen to hear the shots and also happen to take the time and effort to call 911, the dispatcher updates the radio announcement with something like "3 callers on the shots call, street name/block number [perhaps add'l details.]

When the police unit(s) arrives in the area, officers start looking for some indication of a shooting. A crowd? A victim? Neighbors/friends hollering/crying?

If the arriving officers find a victim or witnesses who can and will talk, that can confirm a shooting...but sometimes victims and witnesses can't or won't talk. If that happens, police still look for evidence of a shooting: shell casings; damaged vehicles; scarred buildings; but in the dark, this can be like looking for a needle in a haystack.

If after all of this, the officers find nothing, and there's nothing else to confirm a shooting, the officers may respond: UTL [unable to locate.] But there really may have been a shooting, accurately heard and reported by residents, for which responding officers with a vague location and under time pressures simply couldn't find. The shooting goes unrecorded...and the shooter remains on the loose to shoot again.

ShotSpotter's website says it can identify -- with considerable accuracy and in seconds -- if there's been a shooting and direct officers to its precise location. Police could be on their way to the shooting site while under LB's antiquated process, a caller would be calling or trying to explain what happened before anyone is dispatched anywhere.

Under LB's current antiquated system, some callers may also legitimately be mistaken; they may think they hear gunfire when it's actually fireworks. If that happens, LBPD resources may be dispatched to gunfire that didn't happen. But ShotSpotter says it can tell the difference between gunfire and fireworks, conserving scarce LBPD deployable resources.

So...who's responsible for leaving Long Beach with its current antiquated, inefficient and often ineffective system?

From LBREPORT.com's Amnesia File:

A Sept. 2, 2011 memo by City Manager Pat West during the FY12 budget process included ShotSpotter among items recommended for funding. Mr. West's memo estimated LB could have ShotSpotter technology for $350,000.

On Oct. 4, 2011, then-Councilman Robert Garcia, joined by then-Councilmembers O'Donnell and DeLong and Councilman Andrews, proposed to allocate uplands oil revenue for basically the items that city management had recommended including [the Councilmembers' agendizing memo text] "Shotspotter System: $350,000. The Shotspotter gunshot detection system would be a valuable tool to assist the Police Department in responding to gun incidents and other types of crime."

LBREPORT.com twice editorially urged Council approval for ShotSpootter. On October 4, 2011, substitute and substitute-substitute motions flew over other proposed items and a second substitute motion passed 6-3 that allocated funding for ShotSpotter. (Yes: Garcia, Lowenthal, DeLong, O'Donnell, Andrews and Johnson...with Schipske, Gabelich, Neal dissenting on items unrelated to ShotSpotter.)

However after the Council allocated the ShotSpotter sum, LBPD's administration and brass resisted deploying it.

On November 13, 2012, O'Donnell and Vice Mayor Garcia reversed themselves, agendizing an item that proposed to de-fund Shotspotter. In their agendizing memo, they wrote:

On October 4,2011, the Council approved the appropriation of one-time Upland Oil funds to the Long Beach Police Department for the potential deployment of gunfire detection technology. The vendor referred to in these discussions was ShotSpotter. ShotSpotter, and other similar vendors, assist public safety agencies in gathering specific data about gunfire, using microphones and computer technology to determine location, number of shots fired and timing.
After analysis by City Management and the LBPD, it has been determined that ShotSpotter's technology does not currently meet the public safety needs of the City. Further, it has been concluded that a gunfire detection technology that is compatible with the City's landscape does not currently exist with any vendor. At this time, the existing funds will not be used to purchase or subscribe to this type of program.
It is appropriate that the funds be utilized to further one-time public safety needs, as was the Council's intention. A positive one-time use for these funds would be Police Department overtime costs for Fiscal Year 13. This would allow the Department, at its discretion, to have additional officers in the field where they are greatly needed. The LBPD and City Management will continue to discuss and analyze gunfire location services as they are developed.
Recommendation: Request City Manager to reappropriate $350,000 of Upland Oil funds currently budgeted for gunfire location services technology to the Long Beach Police Department to be utilized for FY 13 overtime costs...

The Council vote to de-fund ShotSpotter and spend the money for LBPD overtime was 7-2 (Yes: Garcia, Lowenthal, O'Donnell, Schipske, Johnson, Austin and Neal; Absent: DeLong and Andrews.)

Vice Mayor Garcia is now Mayor Garcia, and has now recommended two budgets that didn't fund ShotSpotter. Councilman O'Donnell left the Council for Sacramento and his successor, Councilman Daryl Supernaw, along with Councilmembers Lena Gonzalez, Suja Lowenthal, Suzie Price, Stacy Mungo, Dee Andrews, Roberto Uranga, Al Austin and Rex Richardson, voted in Sept. 2015 for a FY16 budget recommended by Mayor Garcia that doesn't fund ShotSpotter.

That's why LB doesn't have ShotSpotter today.

We suspect, but can't prove, that there are two underlying reasons why LBPD brass and some Councilmembers don't want ShotSpotter. The first is that it would require LBPD to send police officers to respond to the spotted shots. LBPD doesn't have those officers because the Council enacted budgets recommended by Mayor Garcia and his predecessor Mayor Foster that have left LB taxpayers with a thin police level for citywide deployment that's roughly equivalent per capita to cutting LAPD's officers by about 30%.

Another reason we surmise is that ShotSpotter would reveal that LB's current old fashioned way of responding to "shots fired calls" under-counts the real extent of LB gunfire (ShotSpotter says that's what has happened in other cities) and the truth would embarrass incumbents in some LB Council districts.

Some readers will notice that if LBPD had deployed ShotSpotter as the Council voted in 2011, the City would likely have to find other sources of ongoing funding now because oil revenue has significantly declined. That's true.

But that sum is a fraction of what LB taxpayers will pay as a result of a December 15, 2015 City Council 9-0 vote to enter into what we consider a disastrous Civic Center transaction. Among other things, the Council action will drain $3 million from taxpayer surplus (that won't be used citywide to repair streets, sidewalks, infrastructure) plus drain $1.7 million per year for the next ten fiscal years (that won't be used citywide for police, fire, parks, libraries or infrastructure.) The Council action will saddle LB taxpayers with 40+ years of annual escalating (CPI) payments, the equivalent of agreeing to an adjustable rate mortgage just as interest rates begin rising. The action diverts otherwise available citywide resources to a few downtown blocks without voted approval by taxpayers citywide who'll pay the sums.

The Council action will give city officials a new Taj Mahal City Hall while leaving the public with a shrunken Main Library and permanently give away a portion of Civic Center property for private development without a publicly disclosed third-party appraisal. The Council approved this without seeking bids or inviting expert testimony on seismic retrofits independent of hostile city management that could have offered options for a less costly seismic retrofit of LB's less than 40 year old City Hall. Instead, the Council's action will let seismic issues persist at LB's current City Hall until (management's current estimate) mid to late 2019. In contrast, the City could have explored a seismic retrofit as early as 2007 that might have been completed by now, and financed with fixed annual payments with voter approval.

George Orwell's 1984 predicted a time in which government officials would expect mass media to dispense, and the public to accept, "double-think," trusting mutually contradictory concepts are true while completely oblivious to their contradiction.

So...if Long Beach now supposedly has a "24 hour City Hall." it's fair to ask LB's nine incumbent Council members why they voted to divert scarce taxpayer dollars from citywide needs and their own Council districts to a few blocks of downtown LB to build another brick and mortar government building that will be as old when it's paid off as LB's current City Hall is now.

Do you suppose Long Beach will be using ShotSpotter by then?

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