[dragonwriter]

> Shotspotter or the generic equiv should be purchased by the city, not the police.

Generally, the police are part of the city, and the sole and deliberately centralized city agency with a mandate that makes something like ShotSpotter relevant.

So, of course, if it is bought “by the city”, it is through and under control of the police department.

[jfrankamp]

I'm arguing though that due to the conflict of interest, it should be at least one level up IRT purchasing, access to interpretive/raw data, and decision making on which of that data they want to share etc. Remove funding and responsibility from the police to run this system/vendor, and move it into the "office of public data accountability" e.g. which can serve its data equally to the public, watchdog groups and the police.