From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A production of I Heart Grading. Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They called me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer Paul. Mission Controlled decands. Most importantly, you are you. You are here, and that makes this the stuff they don't want you to know. Before we get started, shot Spotter did reach out to us regarding some of the statistics provided in our episodes and their position with respect to the Williams case. Shot spot a disclaims all responsibility and Mr williams incarceration and disagrees with the associated press is factual assertions regarding changing locations. If you're interested in reviewing additional information from shot Spotter on these topics, please visit www dot shot spotter dot com. Before we get too carried away and what may well be a two part series, we want to give a couple of shoutouts. Shout out to Mission Control as student listeners. You may notice that he made his first on air appearance quite recently, working with our good friends Illumination Global Unlimited. So that's the kind of door you can't close. Paul, Welcome to the show. Also shout out to everyone who picked up a copy of our book. Stuff they don't want you to know. Uh, we've been getting this is this really neat thing happening on social media. People are sending like or they're posting when the book arrives for them. For folks who ordered to a physical or print copy, it always makes our day to see it because we really, um, I don't know the kind of folks we are, Matt Nolan. I know. One of the first things we talked about when we finally got got the manuscript on on this one was Okay, what's our next book? And everybody, everybody's telling us, slow down, you gotta you gotta talk about this this first one. So we might even have an episode where we talk about the process of of going through this book. If that would if that would be interesting to anyone? What do you what do you guys think would that be interesting? Or is that like I mean, I was interesting, I'm interested and I went through it, so I think, you know, there's a lot of mystical stuff wrapped up in the publishing world, and I think, um, there could be some stuff they don't want you to know about the stuff they don't want you to know. Perhaps maybe we can get Neils on the show with us oh Man, the Man, the mid the legend. Uh, if we can pull him away from Arnold Schwarzenegger, that is a true story, And just that kind of offense comment makes I I don't know, Yeah, I'm I'm on board. Uh, we'll Arnold's pretty strong. I don't know I'm able to pull him away. If he doesn't want to relinquish him. We'll have to entice him with like cigars. I'm thinking like one of those old school cartoon traps where you've got a box and then there's a stick, you know, and then we got we got like some Cuban cigars there, and we just get him towards the box and we pulled the string. Have to be a Arnold. Arnold sets traps up like that, like he knows, he knows that tactic. The stick is the cigar, the box is a cigar box, and then the treat is also a cigar and mess around and catch a predator in there eats cigars. Uh so yes, Well, we'll put a pin in that. Maybe we'll just be honest with Arnold ask hi if we can borrow his buddy for a minute. But in the meantime, we have to be honest. The for us to be able to put in our awesome ACME level plans, we're going to need to not get to by a company called shot Spotter. That's right. Today we are looking at the gritty world of crime, the bleeding edge of technology, and of course, sadly more than a little bit of corruption and conspiracy depending on who you ask. This is our shot Spotter episode, and we want to thank everybody who took the time to write in, from everyone from activists to active members of law enforcement to regular regular folks who don't work in a related industry. But we're saying, hey, this is scary stuff, let's learn more about it. So we want to thank all of you. You might get a name drop as we as we explore this troublesome, controversial story. And again what will probably have to be a two part episode, So here are the facts. We're talking about crime. We're not gonna be uh, you know, we we don't like the exploitative or exploitative nature of some some ways the media explores crime or reports on it. But it's no secret, right, everybody knows the United States has a huge problem with gun deaths in particular. Right, that's not a hot take, I think. So it seems that we're sort of an outlier in that respect, uh, compared to other parts of the world. Um. I don't have the stats in front of me right this exact second, but you sure hear a lot more about people getting killed by weapons here in America than you do. And say, you know the UK or Asia. Well we've got some stats right from the pure Oh yeah, those are the ones that we've got. We've got some I mean to your point, And well, it's that I think we're also referring there specifically to global conversions, right, global comparisons, right, Um, And we haven't pulled that because right now shot Spotter is still very much United States and North American story. But I would pause it. It's not going to be that way for long. We'll see why. I mean, look, we always want to be very mindful about the way we address anything related to mass shootings and gun deaths in the United States. There's no end to people arguing different perspectives on this, Right, how did this country come to be in this position? How best to solve or address the issue? But everybody can agree there is a problem. For today's episode spoiler, we're probably not going to be the folks to fix it. But if you'd like to learn more about these perspectives, check out some of our previous work on this. And you know what, if you're listening and you specifically have the answer to solving gun deaths in the United States, or at least put in them in line with other countries, don't even wait to listen to the rest of this episode. Just pause it and then email the answer to us now, because we will put it on air if we think it's legit. Everybody once this problem solved because places like the Pew Research Center like you mentioned, Matt and the c d C, places that are objective, quantitative based institutions, they noticed that gun deaths aren't just a problem historically in the US, gun deaths are actually escalating. They are on the rise in a dangerous way. Yeah, well, let's go ahead and say it. So. In the year of the pandemic, it was the most people affected by gun related injuries on record, Right, and this as we record this episode, is the latest set of numbers that we have from that year. It says forty five thousand, two hundred and twenty two people died from gun related injuries in the United States. In Jesus, that just seems egregious. That's an insane number. I mean, how many people died from traffic accidents in a year? Is there more than a less than that? I think? Well, think about it. Is there an active war within the United States where that number of casualties by gun would make sense logically? Right, where there's an active there's an active gunfight in an area of you know, a country at maybe any time. No, this is just standard living. And it is more people than traffic. Oh, yes, it's a double I just looked it up. About twenty thousand people died in motor vehicle traffic crashes, uh in twenty twell, the first half of two. Yeah, it's okay, maybe it's about equal. Then roughly it's scary. Uh. The Department of Transportation said, Uh, three thirty eight thousand, eighty four people died in traffic fatalities, So more people were dying of gun related deaths rather than traffic, which is crazy because way more people in cars than own guns, you know what I mean, it's it's far more likely for anybody's not in the US. You know, there's this stereotyped as some truth to it that a lot of our non US friends will will point to where other people in Europe, for example, have this image of every American rolling strapped to the gills. That's not true, Like there is a lot of gun ownership, but many of the people who own firearms, who sort of contribute significantly to those ownership statistics, they own multiple firearms. They're kind of messing with the bell curve at that point. But to that image that you describe, Ben, I mean, in certain states where there are open carry laws, you will see individuals literally strapped walking through target or what have you. Uh, And for folks that are not expecting to see that, and for folks from countries where even the police don't have guns most of the most of the time, that image must seem just absurdly cartoonish. As you would say, bet, yeah, yeah, again, there's there's a little bit of truth to it. And you know, in full disclosure, Georgia, where this podcast has recorded, recently became one of those, uh, one of the more strident open carry states. You don't have to have a license to rock a firearm in this state currently. But we got to dive into these stats. So, Matt, you said, over forty five thousand people forty two and twenty two. This number includes um includes some disturbing stuff. It let's talk about what it doesn't include. It does not include deaths where gunshot injuries played a contributing but not primary role. What that means is like if someone if someone isn't an altercation, right, and let's I mean, this is brutal, but this hypothetical example, say someone is in a domestic violence situation, or they're in something like, uh, a bar fight or whatever like the old Jim Crocey song, he was stabbed in a bunch of place, has shot in a couple more that kind of thing. If stab wounds are the primary cause of death, then they're not going to count as a gun death because the c d C gets these numbers by looking at death certificates. Death certificates pick one thing as a form of demise or the you know, the way someone dies. But there's a lot of confusion. There's a lot of misinformation about these tragic events. Homicides and mass shootings often get reported right there. There is disturbing times where it seems like a mass shooting is in the news all too frequently. You know, not that there's ever a good time for that to be a story in the news, but there's less public attention on suicides. And if you look at the statistics, the majority of gun deaths in the United States are not homicides, they're suicides. Was fifty of all the country's firearm deaths. There were people taking their own lives. This also accelerated during the pandemic, and that's heartbreaking. We should also know that that large number of plus thousand also includes deaths well when the encounters with law enforcement, right, yes, six hundreds so are just considered murders. There would be criminals civilian purposely killing one another, taking one's old life. And then the the other category, the miscellaneous, the three percent includes stuff like unintentional accidental discharged deaths. It's about five thirty five people UH deaths that involve law enforcement, which is they have very specific reasons for picking that language that led to the deaths of six d and eleven people. And then there's good old undetermined circumstances. We're not sure, but four people are dead. So I mean, I think it's clear there is a problem based on literally everything we've just said, uh, supported by all of these troubling statistics. And every day more than fifty people are murdered, intentionally killed. I know, you know what murdered means, but I just want to hit that home with a gun. And another eleven hundred are threatened, menaced, uh, perhaps even abducted, you know, in some way coerced during some commission of a violent crime. And of course, whatever your stance might be on the Second Amendment, when you know this is a very fraught issue, I think there I think any of the three of us would also argue that maybe not, but uh, I think it's important to be able to defend one's self. Um, but I think that should be there should be checks and balances on that, and I think the ones that are in place aren't mega great. Uh. I mean that's the thing. Regardless of your personal stance on the Second Amendment or on gun owner rights or firearm legislation and what have you, everyone can agree that fewer gun deaths would be a wonderful thing. That's why there are people working around the clock to prevent them. We're talking about prevention, We're talking about tons of different proposed strategies. Some are more popular than others, but right now there's not a universal one that everyone agrees on. There are things like higher levels of gun control that would be a bucket that includes stuff like makes certain types of firearms illegal. It doesn't matter you know how clean or spotless your background check is. You just can't have this one. People don't like hearing that. A lot of firearm enthusiasts think that's the wrong way to go. And then there's the idea, let's just have higher standards for firearm purchasing or for tracking a fire arm right And we do know this is complicated because powerful financial interest are at play here. That's an a political point. Profits p r o f i t s only care about politics, uh, inasmuch as it affects the bottom line. So we have to be really careful to check sources to um not immediately fall for hyperbolic headlines if those headlines are bought, and that goes unfortunately, that include some academic studies as well. Well. Sure, and I mean a lot of these companies that manufacture firearms are some of the oldest you know, still around. I mean like Smith and Wesson. You know, companies have been making guns since the wild West days. And what happens when you have that legacy, You got legacy money that you can use to hire law firms and lobbyists and and pr spins and and and unfortunately literally by politicians. You know, whether or not you think that's hyperbolic or not, I I think there's some truth to that. I mean, certainly you can't argue that some levels of lobbying is exactly that is buying politicians, at the very least coercing or influencing them in a pretty toxic way. Whole chapter in the book about it. Folks, check it out. It's the one. Uh, it's one of the ones we almost published as an audiobook excerpt here on the show Firebook fire Buck Us. So this, yeah, this is true. Money is involved. That's a big thing. But also I think a lot of folks might miss this if they're outside observers. Many US residents don't just consider firearm ownership a legal right. For many, it's seen as a fundamental part of America's cultural fabric, and it comes from the healthy skepticism that argues it is our right as citizens to be prepared against government tyranny or the ry of dangerous regimes. This is a very old idea, dates all the way back to the American Revolution, or as our British friends probably call it, the peasant unpleasantness. Because like that that I read that as the pleasant unpleasantness. It was very confused. The peasants are unpleasant and to have been since this late seventeen hundred. Something must be done. It's a good strategy to make sure the peasants can make it very unpleasant for any ruler who decides to put him or herself in power. Right, I think it's probably a good thing. Yeah, I agree. I mean that's the look. That's that's another reason there are things like term limits, and you don't have to look far to see what happens when the peaceful succession of power is endangered or when people start ignoring those checks and balances in the government. Right now, I'm thinking, of course, of our man Gijiping out in China who just started just kicked out some rivals, had another purge of the party and made some barnstorming speeches for him at least uh, and is probably going to continue to try to be president for as long as possible. Uh. This is the kind of stuff that can happen in the founding fathers of the United States, as imperfect and at times hypocritical as they were, they were aware of the danger. And that's something that a lot of people point to when they talk about the Second Amendment. Also go back to the business people in the US by guns all the time, and there are lobbying groups that will see these pseudo grassroots stories about ammunition being in shortage because that makes people buy more AMMO instantly. Um in US residents bought twenty million guns. Then again, a lot of those are from maybe collectors or from people who own more both firearms already. So it's not as if, you know, the stereotype does bug me. But just to be clear, it's not as if a child is born in the US and has given a pacifier and like a tiny forty five or something you know, uh there, yeah, yeah, they're not enough muscles in that baby's arm to fire any sized oh tiny. Brought to you by Illumination Global Unlimited and its subsidiaries Smith and Wesson. I love that you shout them out. In all, they made over a billion dollars last year alone, uh twenty million guns just for context, breaks down to about six guns for every one US residents give you go off census numbers, so there are a lot. There are a lot more than you would find in parts of Europe. Well, all this in mind, you can see how these things complicate this issue. Right, But I feel like, Okay, tell me if I'm if I'm off base here, guys, I feel like even the most hardcore firearm enthusiasts are going to know many I think all three of us do. I think even the most hardcore are going to agree that they also want far fewer gun deaths right there. Their ideas about how to get to that point may be very different from other ideas you hear, but everybody ultimately doesn't want a ton of people to die, right the vast majority of people in the US. If you said, hey, do you think there should be more gun deaths, their answer is going to be absolutely not. Because they're not monsters, and uh they their answers, like their ideas or proposals might not seem like the right move to everyone. But people are trying to think of solutions and you know they might say, hey, we need more responsibility from fellow gun old owners right, or we need we need technology right to help prevent gun deaths. And this is where the crux of the story starts coming together. I mean, we live in such an amazing crazy time. You're listening to this podcast. You met to pay on your age, you may have met someone who was around before television even now you know they were probably very elderly when you met them. But that's nuts. Uh if you look at how quickly the pace of technology has escalated, did you guys see I think it was the most recent SNL episode with a lot of the new cast in there. They did this great cold open with I think will you snap or something like that or when will you snap? It was all about like breaking down because of the news, and there was a moment in there where they were uh bow and Yang was was rattling off facts about Joe Biden's age and like milestones in his life, like when he got his first personal computer and how he was in his fifties when he got when you know you could get the first personal computer something ridiculous like that. I was just like, oh boy, oh boy. Okay, I think for a lot of people might be you know, a grandparent, right, because television was invented. Our television kind of debuted in nine late so so yeah, histories, it's going crazy. It's information overload, it's technology overload. People are saying technology is either different forms attack are either going to destroy the world or save it, and both of those things. Just like Schrodinger's cat, both of those things are true. Right now, those same contradictory states exist. We just have to We don't know what happens as we slowly open the box, but we are going to pause for word from our sponsor, and then we'll be back to talk a little bit more about the technology or the story really takes off. Okay, hypothetical question, Sorry, not just hYP hypothetical question. Uh. If you were a time traveler and you came from let's say the era before right before electric lights were widespread, and you landed here, what what is some of the technology that would most surprise you, not counting stuff like all the rare spices that are now at grocery stores that's just better transit, that African smoke spice. Have you ever seen that before? At a Trader Joe's. It's like it's like the best. It's like hot peppers. You put it on a roast. No, it's like it's it's spice. So it's just like um, crushed pepper, right, crushed crushed pepper and it's smoked and all goes on everything I eat, know, mommy, it is. That's good. I like that. But okay, so what about the technology then? What what technology would amaze you? I still think instant conversation. Instant conversations and atomic bombs. Those are like two of I like instant across the world conversations, the fact that you can send people to space and then talk with them with video too, so you can prove like you've got a visual representation to prove that that person is wherever they say they are when they're talking to you. Right, yeah, yeah, this is We're in what a time to be alive, territory, and you are too as you listen to this. But folks turned the idea of technology to the gun death problem in the US. And they say, and again, a lot of these are folks on both sides of whatever political divide. You want to pick. But the thing that gets me is that the two big kind of disagreements with the role of technology here are. First, there's the idea that firearms should be more, much more heavily regulated and tracked much more comprehensively. It regardless of how you feel about gun ownership, which is a very sensitive topic for a lot of people in this country, regardless how you feel about it, it's undeniable that outfits like the n r A have purposely worked behind the scenes to stymy federal level like gun tracing. You know, they're they're against it, uh, And you can hear any number of arguments why that might be. But this none n r A episode, it's just it's a reality that those groups are trying to stop trying. But why, I mean, we hear so much about black market guns and filing off of serial numbers and all of this kind of stuff, like why not if you if you don't have anything to hide, why would you be against that? Is it because of fear of fall accusations or is it literally just like a paranoid doomsday prepper kind of mentality. You know, it could come from a bunch of different different viewpoints, but one of the One of the arguments is what would happen if there were, say a sudden revolution or god forbid of coup in the United States and now there was a new uh dictator or dictorial regime that wants to you know, um d arm the populace. I would catch that with the doomsday prepper mentality. Yeah, I agree a little bit. Well, I just want to introduce something here in this moment the conversation. Do you guys know about N I B N of course and I B I N Sorry guys, the nationals it's still pronounced nibbin. Okay, Yeah, you're right. But it's a it's an a t F thing. It's the National Integrated Ballistics something network Information and Database. It's a database of different like uh uh weapons you know, rifling barrels and things like that, and also obviously immunition, you know, things that can leave traces and allow you to you know, follow the clues, right like do your detective work. It's just one of those things that is across the board, right for all states within the US that it's something you can be used for that kind of tracing that you're talking about, right, you're right, Almost like a Encyclopedia Ballistic Evidence, So you could say, like, this is the kind of case seeing the kind of firing pattern you can expect from insert firearm here, which again that's a good thing to know if you're trying to solve a crime. But others see this idea of more comprehensive tracking as another stumbling step down the slippery slope of the surveillance state. Too many s is, but we got through it. This for many people paints a pick ri An Orwellian society, one in which freedom and privacy are incredibly endangered. But amid all these controversies, amid all these tragic deaths and all these different ideas about how to prevent them in the future, we see the technology and the company shot spot or Emerge shot Spotter is not a new kid on the block, but it's not super old either. Is founded in nine private company Uncle Sam doesn't own it. It's based in California, and it's primary customers are law enforcement agencies or cities like Chicago or St. Louis and all across the United States. This thing, this company, has deployed proprietary gunfire locating services, and we talked a little bit about the your rays that they use. I don't think we got to the exact type of microphone use, but they're pretty innocuous if you don't know what you're looking for, twenty five microphones per square mile. They're on telephone polls. You'll see them in like traffic lights, at corners, stuff like that, and they don't have cameras. All they do is listen to city noise and wait for what are called impulsive sounds, and then you know, so you'll hear all pop pop pop pop pop, right, and then they'll have an algorithm and a human agent. We'll get into the nuts and bolts of this. I have an algorithm and a human agent determined whether this was a gun shot. And if this is a gun shot and this is subscription fee is still being paid, which is very important. Then shot Spotter will disperse this information to police first responders on the scene. And the idea is that when this technology works, it can speed up response time immensely and therefore it can save live But critics claim it's a lot more to the story, and here's where it gets crazy. So, well, you guys want to talk about shot Spotter met this. I think we originally started talking about this on air due to a news story or a listener mail. It was a listener mail both. Yeah, but that was became something well. But then, like you know, it just kept being in the news and it just kept being a topic of conversation that came up. And he was Barry originally who sent us a voicemail talking about it. And then we got all the info from all the other listeners you mentioned at the top of this episode, and we had a really great response from someone in law enforcement with one perspective and someone who is staunchly anti this technology. So that was interesting to hear the two sides, which will definitely get into Yeah, yep, yep, yep. Uh Shan Spotter was founded quite quite a while ago by this gentleman named Robert Schoen s h O W E N. And it has been well, at least on paper, it has been extremely successful. We have heard personally and we have seen online varying accounts about how successful the system and company is. Yeah. I mean if you rate success in terms of growth numbers, then they're going gangbusters. Yeah. As of twenty one, this stuff, fancy name would be Acoustic Locator Technology. It is in more than a hundred cities. It's in a hundred and twenty five cities. It's on fourteen campuses. If you're totaled up all of the total all the coverage area, but all one place, you would see that shot spotter covers about nine hundred and eleven square miles, which doesn't doesn't seem like a time maybe. Oh no, we talked about in that previous episode. It costs ten thousand dollars per square miles to cover. And and and one thing we're gonna get into I know as well is the technology. The actual technology behind it isn't very transparent. Like when when when we talk about these microphone arrays like as a technology, music technology and recording nerd. My immediate questions, what kind of mics are they using? Are they using parabolic mics? You know, ribbon mics? I would I would assume something that had that can be focused, you know, and pointed and pick up you know, from a decent distance away, perhaps with the aid of some sort of parabolic cone around it that like sort of amplifies that. But you can't find that information and I can tell you why. It's proprietary. It could well be some hybrid mike that they invented just for this purpose that they don't want us to know about because we might copy it and then someone might take that and make a better version or something like that. You know, you don't think they're omnis. They probably are. I don't know if they're an array though, then I would assume they're in a three hundred and sixty degree kind of shape, So you wouldn't want them to be omni. You wouldn't want them to be picking up on the back. Each one would be focused, so it would be like, you know, everything is like picking up been in a perimeter, that's a circle, and then you've got coverage you know, in three degrees, and that would make the most sense for an array, which is how they're describing it. But you know, a single omni records on the front and the back of the microphone, so that might be too much detail on one mic. And also an omni would come in on one audio channel, whereas multiple single directional mikes would have their own channel, which could then be you know, analyzed separately. Nerd Well, this is important because we go it is to a degree proprietary. Think when we say microphone, what we should say is that shot spotter prefers to call them sensors because there are a combo deal. So there's a microphone, but then also there's a GPS to clock some data and uh too, then they've got memory and processing abilities, and then they have a cell capability to transmit that information. So I'm I am not sure what it looks like on the inside, but I'm convinced it's not, you know, just a microphone with some junk duct tape to it, you know what I mean. I don't think it looks like an I E. D or something but improvised explosive device. But certainly a prototype might have looked like that. Probably did. Yeah, prototypes usually look pretty sketchy and might have like worked this out in his garage before you went wide with it. Who knows. And one of our listeners that we we mentioned earlier, n Y s l e O wrote this great piece that you definitely should listen to, even if you know you fundamentally disagree. Check out our listener mail with with a letter from him and someone who has a different perspective. Uh. What was valuable to us about this correspondence is that m Y s l e O breaks down the nuts and bolts of the technology from their firsthand experience as a law enforcement for certain a community that uses this, I think we all found it to be reliable and reasonable because l e O here is really clear when they say, okay, after this part, I don't know, something could be up, something could be happening on that side. But here's my experience, and here's why I can tell you from a factual basis. Other folks replied with what happens when bad faith actors get involved in this process or when allegations of corruption and cover up take place? Before we get to that, let's we gotta walk through kind of the process of how this works. See the chain of evidence this kind of creates, and maybe this will help us see the gaps where corruption or good old human error could could change the story. So the sensors send these they hear something, right, is this a dump truck? Is this a helicopter? Is this? Is this a gun? Is this an active firefight? Well, the sensors will pick this up. They send these audio files to the human analysts. When the sensors say, okay, this is close enough to be a gunshot. These sensors also they'll be as low as twenty from the ground, but the company likes them higher because that eliminates ambient noise. We do not know at this point if anybody has ever like farted hard or loud enough to fool the sensors, but if you could hear a single fart in like a single square mile, because we remember, shot swater is twenty plus microphones in a single square mile, and in order for the system of function, more than three or more of the microphones have to pick it up in order to triangulate where the thing is occurring. So if somebody tooted loud enough, y'all silly, I don't think they do it. Yeah, No, you're right, you're right. That would be medically fascinating. So okay, well they okay, they've detected these noises. It goes to a human analyst who listens to it. There are also a couple of algorithms that come into play. One that does some math that will get to the in this This algorithm is UH primarily meant to help triangulate and target UH an area where the shot occurred within you know, within a few meters. It's pretty impressive. The other slightly more complex algorithm is the one that gets accused of being kind of a black box. That's the one that helps figure out, you know, differentiated dump truck or you know, uh a pants dump from a from a gunshot. Can it differentiate a toot from a shart though? Is the question? I don't know. I don't know. There's got to be like a wetness censor. Right, do you ever hear when you think that that sounded wet? We're gross, mat this is our job we're doing. We're treating this seriously, so okay. They so they echo locate right similar to the way bats do. Right. They there. Their algorithms are triangulating based on timing for when a sound reaches a different part of the square mile covered. And they also make an effort to figure out how many shots are fired and possibly what kind of gun could be involved. And it's not necessarily, you know, hyper specific with the type of gun all the time. It's more like, I think, more like is this a fully automatic weapon? Is this a pistol? For first responders, this lets them know what to expect. It gives them visibility that would not have been otherwise detected. And those algorithms, those are the secret sauce for this. It's not just one really busy guy per city constantly going oh never mind, oh never. But at some point there has to be human intervention. And is that My question is, is that the dispatcher who is maybe less trained with the technology, or is there somebody that works for the company that is like really trained on their proprietary equipment that can then decide whether or not that it's sort of like life alert, where you have a human that gets to assess, you know, whether it's a real threat or not. According to shot Spatter, it is specialists who are trained to analyze the audio who go back and check it again. They're like a shot spotter side yeah. And part of that is wrapped up in the subscription fee. The idea is it's seven monitoring. It was what you're what you're paying for a year per spare mile after you get it set up, and if that's the full number, and it's not quite, we'll see why. Probably probably impart too, because I know we're already we're already getting a little like here, but we've got to introduce some issues. Let's just do Let's do the first issue before you get to the really crazy stuff. In the next episode. So the first issue, this one will will spend the rest of the time on for part one of this series. The first issue might surprise you. We have to acknowledge that there, of course, there are a lot of folks who have a problem with shot Spotter. They see it as this audio I of saw on you know this all seen or all hearing, uh entity of what it could be called a surveillance state. But a lot of people have a problem with this stuff. They're not worried about the potential dangers of a surveillance state. They're saying, we are worried about playing old effectiveness. We don't think it really works where they're talking about. Let's take a pause for a word from our sponsors, dive into some issues we've returned. Shot Spotter, according to its critics, has more issues than a comic book. The studies that we want a reference. This is some of the objective thing stuff we could point to, right because the studies don't have necessarily a horse in the race. And when we were telling you about this stuff, both in this part and in part two, please understand we're comparing the information shot Spotter. Spoiler does not agree with any of it, to be like absolutely honest with you. One one study gets quoted pretty often. It's called Acoustic Gunshot Detection Systems, a quasi experimental evaluation in St. Louis, Missouri. Sexy title, right, No one's denying that. It's positively joycey and isn't that Yes, No, they totally did and they never got in trouble, spread what they thought were innoculous things that wouldn't hurt anybody. But then it turns out carstgetic a yeah, rb guys rb uh So this this study, and Emily Blackburn is someone will we'll talk about some more to this study claims the system isn't a good fit for all law enforcement agencies, especially if they have what's called a pre existing high call volume. What that means is it's not a good fit for police departments that already have really busy days, you know that already have a lot of folks calling for any number of things robberies, reports of gunshots, etcetera. And these academics claim the system doesn't appear to actually reduce the rate of serious crimes at all, but it does increased demand on police resources. Because if you trust this system enough to tell you what if I our arm has been discharged, then you're not going to waste time. Like n Y S l e O said, time is crucial when it comes to gunshot wounds. Right, So this study is saying that really this thing sends people out when it doesn't need to or increases demands on often already cash strapped departments. Well, I mean, I guess that depends on how how responsive the public is to call nine one one when there is an emergency or you know, a shot is fired, right right, Just so, it is the issue also that when police are deployed, that becomes a statistic as well, and then can lead to perhaps false data around things being high crime neighborhoods or neighborhoods getting maybe unfairly categorized as such. It's a huge it's a huge issue because you know, you get into this kind of without it all just diminishing it, uh and oversimplifying it too much. Sometimes you get in this sort of chicken and egg argument. Are police in these neighborhoods uh more often because they're bad neighborhoods? Or is the increased crime rate due to other things? Right? And is increased police presence one of those things, and of course you can already tell it's a very hot button issue that many many people have no fooling gotten their PhDs in, and people are still arguing about it. Right. No one is quite sure how to solve that conundrum. But if you ever read just one study, you can maybe dismiss it, right, you can say, well, this is one thing. Can we reproduce this right? Can we objectively figure out whether there's a pattern. That's where another study comes out in same year, October. This time they went deep in a paper called impact of shot Spotter Technology on firearm homicides and arrest among large metropolitan Counties Longitudinal analysis. To these studies are clearly in a contest to have the longest name. And this study looked at seventeen years of shot Spotter use. That's why, that's why they use the word longitudinal in there, just to say they're studying a long time, a long time scale of this thing and how it was doing. And man, their conclusions aren't great for shot Spotter, No, not at all. This is this is not good press for them. What we would have to point out is they concluded quote and this is them okay, shot Spotter Legal team. This is not us implementing shot spotter technology has no significant impact on firearm related homicides or arrest outcomes. Instead, authors of this study, and there are five of them, the vultron up to right this, they say you should look to public policy solutions. So you need to do something politically and legally, uh, to get more bang for your buck or to get less bang for your buck, which would be the mission here. Uh yeah, that's right. So they're not even saying that this stuff is um ripe for turning the US into They're saying it might not be worth the cash. And this brings us to another issue, the what this one is for all the fellow chief skates in the crowd. Cost? How much does it cost? What are we paying for? Especially when so many municipalities are cash strapped, do either to mismanagement, um gutting of budgets or you know, good old fashioned corruption. Right. Shout out to everybody who got away with the p P P loans, you criminals. Uh, and I love that. That's to screw it up for everybody else. And actually I need it. I can't. I see it every time. I can't even get away with a late fee of the library, you know. But okay, the cost and we too, we wanted to get this from straight from the horse's mouth or from the microphones. Plug Shot Spotter is not cheap at all, uh, and arguably it shouldn't be. But here's how they put it in their fact sheet. So per the official fact sheet, like you said, ben quote, the service is offered as a cloud based solution with no expensive premise based equipment or software to be owned or maintained. The subscription fee is between sixty and D per square mile per year, with a three square mile minimum. Okay, Like, we unpack this real quick because it says no expensive premise based equipment. How is this not? Well, what is premise based? To quote? I get it like on the premises, I get it um. And obviously cloud technology has gone a long way to be another audio nerd. For a second, there is a company that you can stream uh. They have like racks and racks and racks of like the most high end uh, like studio equipment you could ever imagine the kinds of things you could never possibly own. And if you subscribe to this service, I could through my computer send my signal to their room, get it processed. By their rack equipment and then send it back into my computer to record it, which is freaking cool because it's like, yeah, I would never be able to afford all that stuff. So the cloud computing and UH technology and streaming speed has increased to such a degree that something that needs to be real time like that can occur because processing power is so affordable, uh serve or space is so affordable and small. So I mean, I can't argue that the technology sounds neat um when you start getting into the subscription fee uh and the square mileage rate, that starts to make your brow furrow a little bit. So on the low end, let's see, that's sixty if you're getting a deal right per square mile, and you have to have three square miles, so that goes really quickly to one thousand per year uh minimum, and that probably, I'm just guessing, you know, that probably comes with a multi year agreement like a lease, you know what I mean, that's probably and that just makes sense. That's not necessarily conspiratorial, because that's how a lot of cities contract out businesses. Back to Emily Blackburn. UH. This time Blackburn is writing at Police Chief Magazine, which I did not know as a magazine, but is uh this great story? Ben? Uh? These costs per blackburn also don't account for increases in call volume that agencies will experience. Now you've got to have more people manning the phones, right, uh, And it doesn't account for loss of efficiency in that response. This article, I know it might not be everybody's like sixty bedtime reading, but it is worth the time. It's worth reading for civilians and UM law enforcement professionals alike because it drills down into the specifics of shot Spotter in St. Louis from a cost benefit perspective, and they conclude the city probably spends another nine thousand dollars at least or twenty five dollars per square mile extra on top of all the all the stuff they're paying shot Spotter for. It comes with a lot of incurred costs that get pushed onto the department or the agency, and from there get pushed onto taxpayers whether or not they want shot Spotter in their community. Yeah, I concur so, well, that's the thing you're paying for it. Okay, it doesn't matter if you don't want it in your community. It doesn't matter if you love it. Your community is paying for it if it's installed, because those that those funds have to come from somewhere. This means that at least in the case of Missouri, what they were what was supposed to cost sixty K is probably cost you more like minimum k to a hundred and fifteen thousand dollars per square a mile. And spoiler alert, people aren't doing this in just one square mile of a city. That's just not the way it works. And you minimum minimum minimum. And then if you look at it, if you look at it from this case, you know, we're starting with this one because this is an issue with shot Spotter. But it's by far the least crazy issue. It's the least quote unquote juicy issue. It's you know, a problem for the bean counters over in accounting, right, but it but it is important because you have to remember, regardless of your stance on law enforcement in America, you have to remember that taxpayers are paying for it, right and you have to remember that money is therefore coming from your pockets. Uh. This is just the beginning of the story about shot Spotter. We're going to follow up with more of the juicy stuff we tease in the second part of this series. Which I believe will be coming out after this weekend, So everybody stay tuned, be safe, and in the meantime, we want to know what you think about shot Spotter so far. Let us know. We try to be easy to find online. Correct. We are on Facebook, we are on Twitter, and we're on YouTube at the handle Conspiracy Stuff on Instagram or Conspiracy Stuff Show. Yes, we have a phone number. It is one H three three st d w y t K. You can call us right now, leave a voicemail. You've got three minutes. Say whatever you'd like. Please give yourself a cool moniker of some sort of secret code name, just like Doc Holiday and Mission Control over here. And uh, let us know if we can use your voice and message on one of our listener mail episodes. And that's really it. If you don't like calling and using your voice like that, why not instead send us a good old fashioned email. 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