INDIANAPOLIS — It's an effort to help keep Indianapolis communities safe.
"Violence in our city continues to take far too many lives and leaves behind the pain and grief of loved ones," said Zach Adamson, City-County Council vice president.
They're strengthening the city's safety, but not with more cameras. Instead, they're doing it with sensors that can detect gunshots.
"We will evaluate this technology to see if it improves officer response time," said Cmdr. Matthew Thomas, with IMPD's Criminal Investigations Division.
The sensors are placed in a roughly three-square mile area on the near east side. The coverage area for the pilot program has borders on 21st Street and Massachusetts Avenue to the north and northwest, Sherman Drive to the east, Washington Street to the south and Oriental Street to the west.
"What we saw was some clustering of some shots fired incidents and so we thought this would be an appropriate area to test this technology," said Thomas.
Preston Lawson has lived in that area for a little over a year and said he's heard gunshots. He'd like to see these sensors in his neighborhood.
"It's just another tool to help the communities and help the police pinpoint on where something is actually going on," said Lawson.
It started Monday. For the first time, officers are responding to shots detected by these devices.
"During this pilot, the alerts go straight to the officer's laptop and not through the 911 dispatch center," said Thomas. "Upon an alert, the officer will immediately report to communications, the location of the gunshot detection, and respond with another officer, treating the incident as an in-progress crime."
The effectiveness of the sensors will be analyzed at the end of the year. Then the city decides if they will stay and possibly expand the system.
"If gunshot detection proves useful and cost-effective in the long run, it will join the broader effort to make our city safer," said Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett.
He also said the city won't pay for the pilot program. The $9 million it costs will come from the $150 million in American Rescue Plan funds dedicated to the city's violence reduction plan.