The issue involves both the placement (in low income black neighborhoods) and accuracy (allegedly low). According to critics, ShotSpotter has thousands of false positives. Naturally when police think shots have been fired, their response is going to be much different than an innocent knock on the door. Imagine riding your bike down the street as a kid and dozens of cops suddenly arrive with their guns drawn.

So assuming the stats on low accuracy are correct, the use of Shotspotter seems to unjustly subject black residents to potentially harmful high-stakes police calls with no apparent benefit.