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Wrigley Residents Hear Gunfire (Again), But LBPD Can't Find Evidence Of Shooting (Again)... Because Council Has Failed To Budget And Deploy This Gunfire Location Technology


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(Jan. 5, 2017, 4:10 p.m.) -- Overnight shortly before midnight (Jan 4 into Jan. 5), a number of Wrigley residents say they heard gunfire (again), reported it to police (again) and wrote about it on Facebook (again). Some examples:

[Facebook text]

  • Gunshots? I'm on Hill and Magnolia.
  • Heard them too!! A lot actually I'm in mag and 21st.
  • 20th and Chestnut shots fired 7x (listening to police scanner).
  • Yep I knew it.
  • Sounded like that to me.
  • I don't hear the cops. Oh well.
  • Still no sign of cops.. where is the helicopter when you need one!! So scary.
  • I heard them too I heard about five or six gunshots and then there was silence and then one more shot, almost like it was the coup de grace.
  • There goes a siren ??
  • I hope everything's ok and no one is seriously injured.. well hello 2017 ??...
  • [Scroll down for further.]

    LBREPORT.com asked LBPD about this, and Public Information Officer Sgt. Brad Johnson replied that on Jan. 4, 2017 at about 11:10 p.m., LBPD received a call of shots heard in the area of the 1900 block of Chestnut Ave. Officers responded and weren't able to locate any evidence of a shooting.

    We're quite sure that's all true...but we also presume that Wrigley residents didn't hallucinate the gunfire. As a result, we assume the shooter(s) likely remains on the street and he can repeat last night's gunfire in the coming days and weeks. For this, the Long Beach City Council arguably deserves a share of responsibility for voting in 2012 to erase funding for gunfire location technology that a number of other cities use and LB's Council voted to fund in 2011.

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    Within seconds of shots fired, police in cities including San Francisco, Oakland, Chicago and Kansas City see the type of thing displayed below...and the ShotSpotter system can tell the difference between gunfire and fireworks.


    Image source: ShotSpotter.com

    In contrast, Long Beach continues to rely on a primitive method basically unchanged from the previous century. A resident(s) must pick up the phone, call LBPD, report what he/she thinks is gunfire, guesses from where it came, and officers are dispatched to the area to try and find a victim(s), damaged property or bullet casings.

    Why is this happening in Long Beach whose politicians claim to be technologically innovative?

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    Amnesia File: ShotSpotter

    On October 4, 2011, the City Council adopted an item by then-Councilman Robert Garcia (joined by Councilmembers O'Donnell, DeLong and Andrews) that allocated oil revenue to fund items including [Oct. 2011 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."

    However Long Beach PD never deployed the gunfire location system. Instead, a little over a year later on November 13, 2012, Garcia joined in a 7-0 Council vote (Andrews exited early, DeLong absent for entire meeting) to erase budgeted funding for gunfire location technology.

    The excuse offered at the time was that the $350,000 would be better spent for PD overtime (although only weeks earlier the Council had budgeted a sum supposedly sufficient for LBPD purposes.) Then-LBPD Chief Jim McDonnell also said the $350,000 budgeted from oil money would cover only small portion of the city with ShotSpotter, less than what's needed, for a pilot project.

    Shortly before the Council erased funding for a gunfire location system, LBPD management gave LBREPORT.com this explanation:

    [Oct. 25, 2012 LBPD Admin Bureau Chief Braden Phillips email text] "The City of Long Beach remains interested in acquiring a gunfire detection technology. City Management and the Police Department have engaged in exploratory discussions with various vendors who provide the technology to discuss goals and constraints that may factor into the City's decision to invest in a product. These meetings have been invaluable in the search for a system that will be compatible with the City's sprawling urban environment. At this time, a gunfire detection technology that meets these preliminary objectives does not exist. Long Beach will continue to actively monitor this emerging technology for future use in the City."

    But all of this was before LB residents voted in June 2016 to approve a "blank check" sales tax increase ("Measure A"), raising LB's sales tax to the highest among neighboring cities and among the highest statewide, based on the following ballot title and text:

    "[All caps in original] CITY OF LONG BEACH PUBLIC SAFETY, INFRASTRUCTURE REPAIR AND NEIGHBORHOOD SERVICES MEASURE. To maintain 911 emergency response services; increase police, firefighter/paramedic staffing; repair potholes/streets; improve water supplies; and maintain general services.

    Councilmembers accompanied their "blank check" sales tax increase measure with a non-binding resolution reciting their intent that the tax increase "may be spent" for public safety services and infrastructure purposes. Less than 90 days after voters approved the sales tax increase, the Council voted without dissent to spend the tax increase measure's first year revenue mainly for infrastructure...and restored only ten officers for taxpayers out of roughly 200 erased since FY10. (The FY17 budget also restored Fire Engine 8 but not Rescue 12 or Fire Engine 17 and restored LBPD's Southj division (separating South+West divisions that had been combined to produce cost savings.)

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    Speculation now focuses on whether Councilmembers may tap the sales tax increase effectively to fund raises and/or promotions in a new LBPOA contract. Terms agreeable to negotiators for both sides are currently concealed from taxpayers pending a vote by the union's members after which the Council will vote publicly on what it likely offered privately.) The LBPOA union PAC was the largest single contributor to the campaign for the "blank check" sales tax increase, spending $225,000 of the police union's members money on the effort.

    A majority of Councilmembers could vote to revisit ShotSpotter now. Thus far, no LB neighborhood group has adopted resolutions calling on their Councilmembers to budget and deploy ShotSpotter.

    LB neighborhoods disproportionately impacted by gunfire include parts of the 1st, 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th Council districts.

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    ShotSpotter includes a link on its website with ways for cities to help fund the system at this link.

    The company also provides a datasheet for city officials at this link.


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