DENVER — A static microphone sitting above the street in Denver's Park Hill neighborhood is supposed to detect gunshots in under 60 seconds and alert police.
The Denver Police Department has been in contract with Soundthinking, Inc. since 2015, which renewed its contract with the city for five years back in 2021.
The city has started to ramp down their usage for these devices, called Shotspotter. They’re now covering 13.95 square miles — down 13% from previous years— after removing several cameras from the areas with the fewest number of alerts.
The initial locations were determined by looking at areas in the city with the most gun violence.
Denver police say these devices are now concentrated mainly in the Park Hill and Sun Valley neighborhoods. Places that MiDian Schofner, CEO of advocacy organization Epitome of Black Excellence and Partnership, says are historically majority Black and brown.
“We understand the use of technology. We understand how technology can be leveraged to support safety,” Schofner said. “What we don't understand is why there is such an imbalance of where that surveillance exists, and why that is a part of the strategy of the city to intentionally have those surveillance pieces in our community.”
Denver police say they chose these locations based on where they saw the most gun violence, but told city council in a Wednesday meeting that the data used is now five to 10 years old.
Though police have seen some success with ShotSpotter, from 2020 to June of 2026, the devices produced over 25,000 alerts, leading to 655 arrests.
Police don’t respond to every alert. To merit a DPD response, there must be three or more shots fired or the alert must have a corresponding 911 call or come from an area police have already deemed a hotspot.
That has neighbors like Schofner asking the city to look at ways to prevent gun violence instead of responding after the fact.
“The most sophisticated technology in the world is not going to prevent the next person being shot,” she said. “It’s reporting on something that we've already failed to prevent, so they have to be very intentional of what this is supposed to do and ask questions about how they're using the data.”
When DPD’s contract with Soundthinking, Inc. runs out, Denver will be without automatic gunshot detection technology until a new vendor is found. Right now, Denver Police doesn't have another vendor lined up.
The Denver Department of Public Safety and DPD said they’ll be looking at the data from the past few years and ask the community for input as they decide if or how to fix the gap.
They’re encouraging people — with or without this technology — to contact 911 if they hear gunshots.
