Worcester Police Credit Gunshot Detector After Shooting Arrest

WORCESTER, MA — Worcester police arrested a city man early Tuesday morning near the scene of a shooting, and are crediting a gunshot detection system with helping officers find the suspect.

According to police, officers responded to near South and Shannon streets in the Union Hill area just after midnight after an alert from the ShotSpotter system. Police say they found Angel Rodriguez, 23, at the scene trying to hide a gun under the tire of a car.

Around the same time, a 29-year-old man arrived at a local hospital with a non-life threatening gunshot wound. Rodriguez was arrested and charged with carrying a gun without a license and carrying a loaded gun without a license.

Worcester police are in the midst of a push to expand the ShotSpotter program to neighborhoods along Lincoln Street and around Green Hill Park. The expansion, however, has been controversial since the maker of ShotSpotter is offering Worcester a discount on equipment if police sign up to test software, called ShotSpotter Connect, that purportedly forecasts future crime events.

The Worcester City Council discussed the ShotSpotter expansion on Jan. 19, but did not immediately give the go ahead for the ShotSpotter Connect software. The Council's Public Safety Committee will discuss the software at a meeting scheduled for Monday.