national gunfire index, 2015
TRANSCRIPT
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National
GunfireIndex Published 03 2016
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Table of Contents
3 Foreword
4 Top 3 Findings 2015
4 Top Finding #1
5 Top Finding #2
6 Top Finding #3
7 Gunfire Summary 8 Regional Gunfire Rates
9 Gunfire Rates by Hour Across the Country
10 2014 - 2015 Gunfire Comparison per Square Mile
11 Regional Spotlight
12 Holiday Gunfire Spotlight
13 City Spotlight
17 Methodology and Notes
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2015 has been a remarkable year for reduced
gun violence in the United States. While many cities
reported an uptick in reported homicides, the results of
our gunfire index summarized on the next few pages
outline the fact that many cities and regions have expe-
rienced a significant reduction in gunfire. These cities
are demonstrating measurable declines in shooting inci-
dents with comprehensive focused deterrents leveraging
people, process and technology. We are very proud to
be a part of these positive trends in disrupting the new
normal of gun violence.
SST continues to be a leader in helping to reduce and pre-vent gun violence in urban communities. Gun violence is
more frequent in communities than actual homicides. We
know from our customer work that having police respond
quickly to the exact location of a shooting is in fact building
long-term legitimacy and increasing trust with residents.
ShotSpotter combined with community policing work is
making a difference.
What kind of difference? Cities which use ShotSpotter today
see an average of a 34.7% decrease in gunfire incident
volume in the first 2 years of ShotSpotter use. The deploy-
ment of ShotSpotter is effectively reducing and preventing
gun violence in communities when ShotSpotter is used
combined with other gun violence prevention programs.
This 2015 National Gunfire Index Report details a compre-
hensive analysis and overview of the otherwise under-
reported and therefore unknown instances of gun violence.
Our data continues to be of value to law enforcement
agencies, city leaders, researchers and the media. We invite
you to use this report as a data source to better understand
gunfire trends in communities and see how their shoot-
ing incidents compare to other cities who are also using
ShotSpotter.
Let’s work together to better inform policy makers and the
media with the art of the possible with respect to reducing
gun violence. Our vision is to continue to scale out ourdeployments to more cities and larger coverage areas and
then commercially offer this data to the Federal government
who can then combine this gun violence information
with other big data sets and make it freely available to
researchers and the public. Most importantly, let’s continue
to share information on gun violence prevention strategies
and work to improve those communities where gunfire
is most prevalent.
Please forward this report to your colleagues and friends—
get the word out ! We encourage you to comment on this
report via Twitter, @ShotSpotter .
Ralph A. Clark
President and CEO, SST, Inc.
Foreword
https://twitter.com/shotspotterhttps://twitter.com/shotspotter
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Top Finding #2
Gunfire rates have decreased significantly on
a per square mile basis in the Northeast and
West census regions.
The gunfire incident rates per square mile decreased
in every region of the country except for the Midwest.
The most significant percent decrease was seen in
the Northeast, where ShotSpotter also has the largest
coverage area.
Top 3 Findings
Gunfire Incidents per Square Mile
173.8
328.9
109.0
196.5
198.9
167.4
349.9
79.5
191.7
155.2
Caribbean 2014
Midwest 2014
Northeast 2014
South 2014
West 2014
Caribbean 2015
Midwest 2015
Northeast 2015
South 2015
West 2015
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The 2015 Gunfire Summary is based on gunfire data aggregated
from 62 cities across the U.S. that had ShotSpotter Flex
deployed for more than 4/5 of the year.
Incidents: 54,699 / year
Shots Fired: 165,531 / year
Busiest Day: December 25th: 266 incidents in total, 39 in one city.
Single busiest hour for a city:
November 11th at 11:00 PM (24 incidents of gunfire)
Busiest hour of the week:
Saturday 2:00 AM – 2:59 AM (978 incidents)
Worst month for a city:
May 2015 – 422 incidents
Gunfire Summary
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Average Incident Rate by Census Region 2015
140.5Caribbean
351.9Midwest
73.7Northeast
197.5South
143.5West
176.7*National Average
* National Average is defined as total number of incidents divided by total number of square miles.
The average gunfire incident rate per square mile
varies significantly from region to region.
The highest rate of gunfire is in the Midwest with an average
of 351.9 gunfire incidents per square mile during 2015.
The lowest is in the Northeast with 73.7 gunfire incidentsper square mile.
Gunfire rates have continued to decline with the Northeast
and the West having the highest declines of gunfire incidents
year over year.
Regional Gunfire Rates
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Number of Incidents by Hour of Day (local time)
12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
45%
61%
3000
2000
Average
1000
Gunfire rates across the country indicate that
most gunfire activity happens in late evening,
into early morning.
45% of all gunfire occurs between 9PM and 1AM.
61% occurs between 8PM and 2AM.
Gunfire Rates by Hour Across the Country
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Gunfire rates have decreased significantly
on a per square mile basis, in the Northeast
and the West census regions.
Overall, the cities in the Northeast region saw a 27.1%
decline and those in the West experienced a 22% drop in
gunfire incidents over the same time period. The median
number of gunfire incidents dropped from
144.7 gunfire incidents per square mile in 2014 to
123.2 gunfire incidents per square mile in 2015*.
The gunfire incident rates per square mile decreased in
every region of the country except for the Midwest.
The most significant percent decrease was seen in the
Northeast, where ShotSpotter also has the largest
coverage area.
2014 - 2015 Gunfire Comparison per Square Mile
Percent Change in Incidents per Square Mile
-3.7%*Caribbean
+6.4%Midwest
-27.1%Northeast
-2.4%South
-22.0%West
* The 46 cities in our sample covered a total of 172.9 square miles.
The median coverage area was 3.04 square miles per city.
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Coverage Area by Census Region (Cities)
19.7Caribbean (5 Cities)
51.7Midwest (11 Cities)
95.6Northeast (26 Cities)
71.5South (15 Cities)
54.2West (12 Cities)
ShotSpotter Coverage Regions
Coverage areas are not evenly distributed across the
country. To illustrate the variability in coverage area size,
we grouped cities within the sample along the four
U.S. Census “Regions.”
We added a single Caribbean region, for which the
Census Bureau does not have a corresponding grouping,
because the region constitutes a meaningful subset of
ShotSpotter coverage areas.
At year end, ShotSpotter captured gunshot data on
292.7 square miles in cities across America.
Regional Spotlight
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Gunfire Incidents During Holiday Periods
In previous years, SST analysis shows that New Year’s Day,
New Year’s Eve and Fourth of July are the days of the year
with by far the highest rate of gunfire incidents.
Gunfire during these holidays is considered “Celebratory
gunfire” because the gunfire is typically celebratory in nature
vs. gunfire with the intention to harm or intimidate.
This analysis excludes New Year’s Day, New Year’s Eve
and July 4th.
In 2015, Christmas day was the highest gunfire rate for a
single normal day outside of New Year’s Eve, New Year’s
Day and the July 4th
holiday period. In 2014, Christmas was among the highest gunfire rate for a single normal day
outside of New Year’s Eve, New Year’s Day and the July 4 th
holiday period.
Holiday Gunfire Spotlight
Gunfire Incidents per Square Mile / U.S. Holiday
0.499
0.764
0.483
0.740
0.459
0.566
0.433
0.509
0.710
0.596
0.882
0.517
0.743
0.577
0.670
0.429
0.636
0.570
0.570
0.689
0.622
0.968
Martin Luther King Day 2014
Mothers Day 2014
Valentines Day 2014
Memorial Day 2014
Presidents Day 2014
Labor Day 2014
St. Patrick’s Day 2014
Veterans Day 2014
Easter 2014
Thanksgiving 2014
Christmas 2014
Martin Luther King Day 2015
Mothers Day 2015
Valentines Day 2015
Memorial Day 2015
Presidents Day 2015
Labor Day 2015
St. Patrick’s Day 2015
Veterans Day 2015
Easter 2015
Thanksgiving 2015
Christmas 2015
SST excluded New Year’s Eve, New Year’s Day and July 4 th
from this analysis as these three holidays are considered
“celebratory gunfire” and not normal gunfire periods.
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City Spotlight
Atlantic City, NJ
“With ShotSpotter technology, our officers now
respond faster to the scene and have been able
to find victims and evidence quickly. ShotSpotter
is also an important tool that helps with improvedcommunity action and engagement, and all of
this has helped us to achieve a 35.4% decrease
in gunfire violence from 2014 to 2015 across the
city. Our goal is to do everything we can to catch
the people who commit gun violence, and
ShotSpotter is helping us do that.”
Chief Henry White
Atlantic City, NJ
GunfireDown-35.4%
San Francisco, CA
“In San Francisco our focus has been on reducing
gun violence and it appears that our efforts and
community partnerships are having the desired
effect. While there is no level of gun violencethat is acceptable but we are headed in the right
direction and we credit ShotSpotter with helping
us achieve this.”
Chief Gregory Suhr
San Francisco, CA
GunfireDown-34.6%
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Cities Examined
SST’s 2015 gunfire summary is based on the following 62 cities:
At year end, ShotSpotter captured gunshot data on 292.7 square miles across America.
City Spotlight
Amityville, NY
Atlantic City, NJ
Baton Rouge, LABayamon, PR
Bell Gardens, CA
Belle Glade, FL
Bellport, NY
Boston, MA
Brentwood, NY
Brockton, MA
Cambridge, MA
Camden, NJ
Canton, OH
Charlotte, NC
Chelsea, MA
Chicago, IL
Denver, CO
Detroit, MI
East Chicago, IN
East Palo Alto, CA
Everett, MA
Northeast
Northeast
SouthCaribbean
West
South
Northeast
Northeast
Northeast
Northeast
Northeast
Northeast
Midwest
South
Northeast
Midwest
West
Midwest
Midwest
West
Northeast
Fall River, MA
Glendale, AZ
Hartford, CTHempstead, NY
Huntington Station, NY
Jackson, MS
Kansas City, MO
Miami City, FL
Miami Gardens, FL
Milwaukee, WI
Minneapolis, MN
Montgomery, AL
New Bedford, MA
New Haven, CT
Oakland, CA
Omaha, NE
Paterson, NJ
Peoria, IL
Pittsburgh, PA
Plainfield, NJ
Revere, MA
Northeast
West
NortheastNortheast
Northeast
South
Midwest
South
South
Midwest
Midwest
South
Northeast
Northeast
West
Midwest
Northeast
Midwest
Northeast
Northeast
Northeast
Richmond, CA
Riviera Beach, FL
Rochester, NYRocky Mount, NC
San Francisco, CA
San Juan, PR
San Pablo, CA
Savannah, GA
Somerville, MA
South Bend, IN
Springfield, MA
St. Croix, USVI
St. Louis, MO
St. Thomas, USVI
Stockton, CA
Trujillo Alto, PR
Wilmington, DE
Wilmington, NC
Worcester, MA
Wyandanch, NY
West
South
NortheastSouth
West
Caribbean
West
South
Northeast
Midwest
Northeast
Caribbean
Midwest
Caribbean
West
Caribbean
South
South
Northeast
Northeast
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2 If a city was not using ShotSpotter Flex for more than 4/5 of either 2014 or 2015, that city was excluded from this analysis.
If a city’s contracted coverage area expanded in 2014, the expanded area was not included in this comparison data.
Cities Used in Comparison of 2014 and 2015
When comparing 2014 gunfire data to 2015 gunfire data, 46 cities where ShotSpotter Flex was deployed
during both years were used in this analysis2. The 46 cities that make up the “apples to apples” comparison are:
City Spotlight
Amityville, NY
Atlantic City, NJ
Baton Rouge, LA
Bayamon, PR
Bell Gardens, CA
Belle Glade, FL
Bellport, NY
Brentwood, NY
Brockton, MA
Camden, NJ
Canton, OH
Charlotte, NC
Chicago, ILEast Chicago, IN
East Palo Alto, CA
Fall River, MA
Northeast
Northeast
South
Caribbean
West
South
Northeast
Northeast
Northeast
Northeast
Midwest
South
MidwestMidwest
West
Northeast
Hartford, CT
Hempstead, NY
Huntington Station, NY
Jackson, MS
Kansas City, MO
Miami Gardens, FL
Milwaukee, WI
Minneapolis, MN
New Bedford, MA
New Haven, CT
Oakland, CA
Omaha, NE
Paterson, NJPeoria, IL
Plainfield, NJ
Richmond, CA
Northeast
Northeast
Northeast
South
Midwest
South
Midwest
Midwest
Northeast
Northeast
West
Midwest
NortheastMidwest
Northeast
West
Riviera Beach, FL
Rochester, NY
Rocky Mount, NC
San Francisco, CA
San Juan, PR
San Pablo, CA
South Bend, IN
Springfield, MA
St. Croix, USVI
St. Louis, MO
St. Thomas, USVI
Stockton, CA
Wilmington, NCWyandanch, NY
South
Northeast
South
West
Caribbean
West
Midwest
Northeast
Caribbean
Midwest
Caribbean
West
SouthNortheast
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Methodology and Notes
1. The data in this Index is taken only from the areas covered by Shotspotter systems. Thereis no assurance that conclusions drawn from this data will be valid outside the coverageareas.
2. The 2015 analysis in this report is based on 62 communities that had Shotspotter Flexcoverage (reviewed alerts) and were collecting dat a as of December 31, 2015.
3. In order to perform an apples-to-apples comparison of gunfire rates per square mile for2014 and 2015, only those 46 communities that had Flex coverage for more than 4/5 of
the non-holiday portion of the year in b oth 2014 and 2015 are used in the compar ison.
4. Some communities were not covered during some par ts of 2014 or 2015. Therefore,
when calculating values such as gunfire incidents per square mile, care must be takento account for the different number of days of coverage for dif ferent communities. Thechosen solution was to calculate the number of incidents by day and impute the numberof gunfire incidents for those days for which there was no coverage, taking into account
known information about incident rates for the community, the day of the year, the dayof the week, and the year. This method is like proration, but is more accurate. Imputationof incident data for a year is done only for communities that have coverage data for morethan 4/5 of the non-holiday portion of that year.
This method was cross-checked using cities with two full years of data, comparing actualdata to imputed values for simulated missing values. The average difference by city
between the gunfire rates using imputed values vs. using actual values was only 2.2%,showing that imputation can be relied on to give accurate results.
5. Gunfire incidents for a year period were counted if the local time in the time zone of their
occurrence was between 00:00:00 standard time (i.e., midnight) on January 1 and23:59:59 on December 31st (i.e., 1 second before midnight on January 1).
Incidents during the holiday periods of New Years and 4th of July are not counted in
the statistics unless explicitly noted because of the prevalence of celebratory gunfireduring those holiday periods and the fact that it is highly inconsistent with the normalpatterns. The holiday periods are from December 30, 2013 to January 2, 2014,December 30, 2014 to January 2, 2015, June 27 to July 9, 2014, and June 12 to
July 12, 2015.
6. Communities without at least 20 incidents in all of 2014 were not used when comparing
gunfire rates.
7. Incidents were counted only after formal qualification and operational use of ShotSpotter
data by the client agency began, even if gunfire or other incidents were detectedpreviously. Incidents were counted as gunfire if t hey were classified as Single Gunshot,Multiple Gunshot, or Possible Gunfire by SST-certified review p ersonnel. All other
incident types (fireworks, firecrackers, explosions unrelated to gunfire, transformerexplosions, thunder, lightning, helicopters, etc.) were excluded from all statistics presentedin this report. Gunfire incidents not reviewed by SST-certified review personnel are alsoexcluded.
ShotSpotter data does not remain static, as information and adjustments are often madeseveral days or weeks after initial detection (as forensic evidence is analyzed, cases areinvestigated, etc.). This report takes into account the most accurate and recently-availableinformation.
8. Square mileage is measured on the basis of contractual coverage area. For each sucharea, the geographic area is defined as a polygon surrounding each coverage area. If the
polygon coordinates are not available, the contracted area is used. In some cases, smallareas within these coverage areas are intentionally excluded when gunfire is regularlyexpected in those specific locations (e.g. a legal outdoor shooting range or police practicerange). In those cases, gunfire which takes place in those locations outside of authorized
areas is still included in the tallies, but gunfire which takes place during permitted(expected) periods is not included.
9. When the Friday, Saturday and Sunday gunfire totals are compared to the rest of the week, a day is defined as starting at 06:00:00 local time and extending to 05:59:59 thenext morning. For example, early 02:05 Sunday morning is counted as Saturday night.
10. Individual hours of the week and days of the week were calculated on a local time basis.
Appendix
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