Wilmington Police Praise Gunfire Detection System

Wilmington's police chief says a new gunshot-detection technology is helping officers make arrests. The city used a federal grant to install the ShotSpotter system in November. Acoustic sensors around a 3-square-mile area detect gunshots and immediately relay the information to police. Chief Ralph Evangelous is urging the city council to continue ShotSpotter once the federal funding runs out next year. It would cost about $120,000 dollars. Officials in other cities where the system has been proposed have objected to the cost in a time of tight budgets. Evangelous disagrees.

Ralph Evangelous: We're having a true picture of what's going on in the community in reference to gunshots. And it's given us a treasure-trove of data to be able to deploy our resources in a much smarter manner out there in the field. So people who say that are penny wise and pound foolish.

Rocky Mount also began using ShotSpotter last year with federal grant funding.