ShotSpotter Coming Before May Across Suffolk Communities: Report

HAUPPAUGE, NY — Suffolk police will reinstall ShotSpotter in several communities across the county by May, News 12 reported.

The gunshot detecting technology will be coming to Bellport, Coram, Mastic Beach, Shirley, Bay Shore, Brentwood, Central Islip, Huntington Station, North Amityville, and Wyandanch.

Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison told the Legislature's Public Safety Committee on Thursday: "I also am well aware that ShotSpotter was out here in Suffolk County maybe three or four years ago, five years ago, and maybe it wasn't the best type of technology. I'm telling you it works, sir," according to News 12.

Public meetings will be held before the installation, the outlet reported.

Funding to restore ShotSpotter was approved by Suffolk lawmakers in October.

At the time, District Attorney Ray Tierney said the technology would be installed in communities experiencing over 50 percent of the gun violence in the county, describing them as besieged.

Since Tierney took office in January 2022, he has met with mothers who lost their children to gun violence in the very same communities where he has proposed to place the ShotSpotter technology, he said.

"Children should not have to go to sleep to the sound of gunfire," he said. "Mothers should not have to worry that their children will not come home and residents shouldn’t have to worry that a gunfight is going to spill out on to the street before them."

The technology has not been used since 2018, when it was defunded.

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