With expanding technology, perpetrators of violent crime are more likely to get caught in KCMO

Within eight hours last week, detectives solved the murder of an innocent 71-year-old woman who was driving home from work. Had her murder occurred five years ago, it may never have been solved.

Barbara Harper was driving when she was shot and killed on the Downtown Loop about 3 a.m. Jan. 17. City surveillance cameras caught the whole thing, including the license plate number of the vehicle the shooter was in. Detectives used that and several other pieces of technology – from license plate readers to ballistics – to identity and arrest the suspect. We believe he had mistaken the victim’s vehicle for that belonging to another person with whom he had a dispute outside an adult business earlier in the evening.

Our message is to anyone thinking about engaging in violent crime or who knows anyone thinking of engaging in violent crime: it’s becoming more likely every day that you will get caught. There are parts of this city where we will detect your gunshot, see your license plate and capture your face on video. And those areas are expanding.

The technological advances our department has made in the last five years made solving the murder of Barbara Harper possible. She had no relationship to her killer, so traditional investigative measures likely would have produced little information. These advances have gotten us access to more public surveillance cameras and brought us more private surveillance camera partnerships. In addition to fixed-camera partnerships with entities like the Missouri Department of Transportation and the City of Kansas City, we have mobile surveillance cameras we can move around to different parts of town experiencing high crime.

These cameras work with our other public safety technology – like license plate readers and the ShotSpotter gunshot detection system – to help us identify guilty parties and prevent crime. The Police Foundation of Kansas City funded about half of these purchases, and I am very grateful for their donations. They, along with City officials who saw the importance of this equipment, are making our city safer.

Another example of partnerships and technology at work is the greatly decreased violent crime at what used to be troubled apartment complexes. We worked with a private video security company and about 20 apartment complexes that were experiencing violent crime issues on installing cameras around the public areas of the complex properties. Police can view video from the cameras and go back to review recorded video.

Our Real-Time Crime Center is staffed almost all day, every day with detectives and analysts to view and review video footage from all over the city. Officers on the streets also can view footage from many partner surveillance cameras on their cell phones.

As I mentioned in my earlier post, our partnerships with the public through WatchKC and the Neighbors by Ring app have continued to expand our ability to find the bad guys and bring them to justice. Now more than ever, if you choose to engage in violent crime, you stand a better chance of getting caught.

Barbara Harper’s senseless murder is just the most recent of many we have solved through video and technology. We’ve used this technology not only for homicides but other violent crimes such as shootings, rapes and robberies. With this technology, there is a lower probability you will get away with committing violent acts in this city. The deterrence effect will make Kansas City a safer place for everyone. 

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Budget request echoes community concerns

Last week, our department submitted our requested budget for Fiscal Year 2018-19 (which would begin May 1, 2018) to the City Manager’s Office. Ultimately, the City Council will vote on this request, as well as those from all other city departments. Our proposed budget contains requests to fund everything from fuel to employee health insurance, but there are a few major items I want to share with you.

They are requests to fund 21 new dispatcher positions and 30 new patrol officer positions. We realize this is a request for additional tax dollars, and there are many other needs in the city, as well. But with our current staffing, we are unable to provide the kind of service taxpayers expect, so I believe these additional positions would be a very wise investment. These requests have been echoed by the community.

Dispatchers

Many people are put on hold when they call 911 because our Communications Unit is under-staffed. The average 911 hold time for our department increased from 26 seconds in August to 30 seconds in September. This is unacceptable to both the Kansas City Missouri Police Department and the community we serve. When you call 911 in a crisis, you should get an immediate response. During the public forums for the Chief of Police selection process this past summer and the meet-and-greets I’ve attended this fall, residents have told me over and over again how concerned they are about being put on hold when calling 911. It’s a major community concern, and it should be.

We are hiring and processing as many people as we can to get our numbers back up to where they should be, but our current budgeted positions are not enough, according to a staffing study and national public safety telecommunication organizations. Twenty-one new dispatcher positions would cost $1,071,000 in FY 2018-19. I firmly believe that is a very wise investment for timely response to emergencies. While these additional dispatcher positions would bring us more in line with comparable cities, we would still remain on the high side of number of calls per dispatcher, compared to those cities and national standards.


Officers

For the last two years, as our officer numbers have decreased to stay within budget, our response times have increased, peaking at a citywide average of 9 minutes and 20 seconds for Priority 1 calls in November 2016. We’ve been working to bring them down since then. With some Academy classes coming through, we’re back to an average of about 8 minutes citywide, but some areas like North Patrol Division still experience an average of 9 and a half minutes for a response in an emergency. I also know many people in our city with lower-priority calls like home burglaries and non-injury accidents wait hours for a police response. That is not acceptable to KCPD or the community we serve, either.

After consulting with the Patrol Bureau, we determined 30 additional patrol officer positions are the minimum we need to improve response times. More than 30 officers would be very beneficial, as well, but we are cognizant of the other budgetary needs of the City and therefore limited our request in this proposed budget. Patrol officers are the backbone of this department, and in my view, everything else KCPD does is to support the patrol function. Also included in our budget is a request to civilianize several analytical positions on the department so those officers can get back in the field, as well.

For this year, those new officers would not come on until mid-year after other Academy classes have graduated, so our request for these officers in FY 2018-19 would cost $720,000. Again, we believe that is a small price to pay for the timely police service taxpayers expect and deserve.


Technology

What is not requested in this budget but should be on everyone’s radar are our technology needs. Many of our major technological systems are 10 or more years old and coming to the end of their life cycles, including in-car cameras and computers, E-ticketing machines, and our portable radio system. Replacement of the radio system alone is estimated to be $9 million and must happen within the next four years. The decision of whether to implement body cameras also will be steered by whether we have updated in-car camera and computer systems that could be compatible with them. It’s a logical progression.

I want the community to know that we are working to address the issues of timely 911 and patrol officer response, as well as the technology that makes those responses possible, like in-car computers. I look forward to working with the City staff and City Council in providing improved police service to the people of Kansas City while keeping in mind all of the city’s other needs, as well.

Send comments to kcpdchiefblog@kcpd.org

ShotSpotter is working, but community engagement is still key

Yesterday, U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver and I announced the success achieved with the ShotSpotter gunshot detection system. ShotSpotter went live in Kansas City on Oct. 1, 2012. The system covers 3.5 square miles in the city’s urban core and alerts police to gunfire. You can learn more about how it works here.

Police have been dispatched to 977 shots fired alerts through the system in the last eight months. These have led officers to recover 342 shell casings, 96 live rounds and 13 firearms. They’ve made six felony arrests through ShotSpotter, three of which resulted in federal charges for felons in possession of firearms. And since ShotSpotter’s implementation, aggravated assaults with firearms have decreased by 24.6 percent in the covered areas.

One example of a ShotSpotter success story happened in December 2012. Officers responded to the area where ShotSpotter indicated a gun had been fired. They found a man suffering from an apparent gunshot wound. Later investigation revealed the victim had been inside a stolen vehicle with another man who had shot him and fled. Police promptly located the vehicle and suspect. They found the firearm used in the shooting inside the car, as well as another stolen gun. The suspect gave a full confession and was charged with aggravated assault and armed criminal action. He was jailed in lieu of a $100,000 bond.

The detectives who worked that case believe that without ShotSpotter, police never would have been contacted. Because of the vehicle theft, they don’t think the victim would have reported being shot. But because of ShotSpotter, a man who tried to kill someone is off the street and being held accountable for his actions.

Another success story comes from an accumulation of gunfire data that ShotSpotter picked up on and KCPD intelligence analysts gathered. The system detected gunshots coming from the same address on multiple occasions. Police were able to use that data to obtain a search warrant for the house. Inside they found two illegally possessed firearms and the drug PCP. They were able to take suspects into custody.

But the real success of the ShotSpotter system isn’t in the statistics. It’s in the relationships it is helping to build. Sadly, hearing frequent gunfire has become a way of life in some neighborhoods. People didn’t report it because they were scared or felt police wouldn’t do anything about it. Now they see that we are doing something about it, and we are here to make their block safe again. When we show up at these shots fired calls now, people come out of their homes to ask us what is going on. They are learning that we will be there and they can talk to us. If police had been better engaged with the community over the years, we wouldn’t need ShotSpotter. We are working to repair that disconnect and engage the public once again.

We are not surprised by the effectiveness of ShotSpotter. The system was placed in the right areas of the city – those where violence had become too common of an occurrence. (We will not reveal where the system is located so we can stay several steps ahead of those who engage in criminal activity.) Given additional funding, we would love to expand the system in other areas.

But technology and police won’t solve everything. It’s up to community members to say they refuse to tolerate violence in their neighborhood.

And as we approach Independence Day, I wanted to let you know the ShotSpotter system can differentiate between fireworks and gunfire. Both are illegal in Kansas City. Police will be responding to these calls on the Fourth of July and every other day. And with ShotSpotter, the gunshot calls that might otherwise have gotten lost in fireworks noise will be clear, and police will respond to them promptly.

Send comments to kcpdchiefblog@kcpd.org.

ShotSpotter system goes live this weekend

PRESS RELEASE:

The ShotSpotter gunshot detection system will go live in Kansas City by October 1.

Covering 3.55 square miles in the urban core, the system will provide police the opportunity to rapidly respond to gunfire while building relationships with law-abiding residents in the coverage areas.

The ShotSpotter Flex system from SST Inc. is a partnership between the Kansas City Missouri Police Department and Kansas City Area Transportation Authority (KCATA), with federal funding for the project secured by U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver. The $720,000 grant funds five years of ShotSpotter service, equipment installation, and maintenance.

Since the press conference announcing the system on May 4, 2012, police, the KCATA and several community partners have worked together to install ShotSpotter. Within the coverage area, the system will identify the address of gunshots, the number of shots fired, the number of weapons used, and all within a few feet of the actual shots. Police are not divulging the locations of the system, but portions of the KCATA Troost Max bus line and the federally designated Green Impact Zone will be covered.

When the system detects a potential gunshot, it will alert an audio engineer at ShotSpotter, located in Newark, Calif. The engineer will listen to the sound to determine whether it was a gunshot (as opposed to a car backfiring, firework or other noise). If so, the engineer will alert KCPD dispatchers. This whole process takes about 45 to 60 seconds. Police dispatchers will have a monitor showing them a map of the location of the shots, and they will direct officers on the ground to the spot. Officers will respond with the same level of urgency as they do to any other shots-fired 911 call.

Chief of Police Darryl Forté said ShotSpotter is part of an organizational change regarding how the police department prevents and responds to violent crime. Not only will the department be able to use the shooting data collected through ShotSpotter to deploy police resources and prevent crime where it’s most needed, it also will provide an opportunity for police to engage the community.

“Officers responding to these calls will contact residents in the area and tell them we are aware of recent gunfire in their neighborhood,” Chief Forté said. “We hope that contacting these residents will foster awareness, cooperation, potential information and an opportunity for community engagement.”

ShotSpotter is used in more than 70 other cities in the United States. SST Inc.’s studies have shown that as much as 80 percent of illegal gunfire goes unreported. Police hope the new community outreach prompted by ShotSpotter will increase reporting and citizen cooperation.

Send comments to kcpdchiefblog@kcpd.org.

ShotSpotter is coming to Kansas City

I was pleased this morning to join Congressman Emanuel Cleaver, Mayor Sly James, and several others at the Metro Center at 39th and Troost to announce the partnership that will bring ShotSpotter to Kansas City. This technology is “a gunfire alert and analysis solution” that uses several acoustic sensors that activate instantly when gunfire occurs. “The sensors and software triangulate and pinpoint the precise location of each round fired within seconds.”

ShotSpotter has the power to get officers to shooters and victims very quickly. I’ve done the research, and it’s a great crime-fighting tool. Even before I was chief, it was something I wished the Kansas City Police Department could have, but we never could identify a funding source for it. Rep. Cleaver made it happen. He saw how effective it was in Washington, D.C., and put forth a lot of effort getting it to Kansas City.

He worked with the KCATA (Kansas City Area Transportation Authority) to reprogram federal grant dollars left over when their Troost Max project came in under budget to a public safety project that will benefit everyone. KCATA Executive Director Mark Huffer said today this is the first police-transit ShotSpotter partnership in the nation.

Because criminals don’t tell us where they’re going to be, we’re not going to announce exactly where ShotSpotter will be. But it will be in high-crime neighborhoods and/or near urban core transit routes. The police department is seeking more funding possibilities to expand the system.

Sixty-six other cities use ShotSpotter with great success, and I’m confident Kansas City will have success, too. As Rep. Cleaver said this morning, “This is a rather bold attempt to silence the violence.”

It is just one piece of a larger effort to stop violence. We’re deploying more police to hard-hit areas and continue to build trust with residents. We also implore the community to not tolerate criminal behavior in their neighborhoods.

Send comments to kcpdchiefblog@kcpd.org

First e-tickets rolling out

On Wednesday, something pretty neat happened in the world of traffic tickets here at KCPD: we issued our first E-ticket. At 7:44 a.m. July 26, a woman was issued an e-ticket for going 65 mph in a 45 mph zone on 71 Highway near Truman Road. While she likely wasn’t very excited about the ticket, it was a big day for us.

We’ve been working toward e-ticketing for some time now. I first told you about it in February. This eliminates triplicate-paper citations and automatically transfers citation information to Municipal Court. The whole system is scheduled to go live Aug. 29. When it does, violators should be able to pay their fines online within 24 hours of getting their citation. This will clear up a lot of paperwork between the Police Department and Municipal Court and really streamline the process.

We’re in a one-week test period of the e-ticketing system now. Four traffic enforcement officers were selected to try out the hand-held devices that print receipt-like tickets for violators. In a 24-hour period from Tuesday to Wednesday, July 26 to 27, they’d issued 68 e-tickets. We’re using this week to identify any bugs with the system and test the officers’ learning curve. When they first started, the test officers took about 12 minutes to issue an e-ticket. But amazingly, within 24 hours they’d already returned to close to their normal traffic-stop time of about 5 minutes.

We’re planning a “soft rollout” of the e-ticketing equipment the week of Aug. 22. All patrol officers should have the devices by then and get hands-on experience using them. We’ll also make sure information is being properly transmitted to the court.

Then on Aug. 29, Kansas City drivers disobeying the law can count on getting a new-fangled e-ticket and a much more convenient process to pay their fines.



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E-ticketing is coming to an officer near you

No one likes getting a ticket, but the process is about to get easier in Kansas City. Electronic ticketing is coming to KCPD this year. We anticipate that by September 2011, officers will begin issuing tickets from hand-held electronic devices. 

E-ticketing will be virtually paperless. Gone will be the days of triplicate citations with sheets of carbon paper. Officers will soon have computers with small printers in their cars (or a hand-held version for officers such as motorcycle officers) to enter citation information. They will then print off a receipt-like ticket for the violator. The computer already will have transferred the citation information to the police department and to Municipal Court. These devices will increase our officers' efficiency and allow them more time to focus on serious crime problems in our community.

Further advancements also will include completely electronic municipal court rooms and less-cumbersome ways to pay fines. I'll continue to update you on the progress of this project as we move closer to implementing this new technology.

Send comments to kcpdchiefblog@kcpd.org.