Police consider gunshot sensors to reduce crime

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The Metropolitan Police Department is hoping that new sensory technology in some of the District's tougher neighborhoods will slow down rising gun crimes.

Although crime in general has been falling, the District's child homicide rate already is higher than last year's number, with 13 children killed so far. Most of those deaths were from guns.

Police are investigating an apparent drive-by shooting Monday night in Northeast that left 8-year-old Chelsea Cromartie dead from a stray bullet.

The police department is reviewing a potential contract with Planning Systems Inc., a Reston information-technology company, to put up gunshot detectors in Washington's high-crime spots, said Metropolitan Police Spokeswoman Rai Howell.

The device, known as "Secures," acts as a radio transmitter, picking out gunshots from other noises and relaying the coordinates of gunfire to a local command center.

The devices are inside small, gray boxes that are wireless and can be placed on light posts, traffic signals, buildings and other locations on a city block, said Alan Friedman, Planning Systems' president and chief executive officer.

The boxes generally are placed a few hundred yards apart and pinpoint a gunshot for the police within 10 feet of the occurrence, Mr. Friedman said.

They have been fine-tuned to discriminate a gunshot, which tends to have a high frequency, from other noises such as a car backfiring or firecrackers.

Once a gunshot is determined by multiple machines that are placed throughout city blocks, the machines send back to a central computer unit the coordinates and times of when the shot occurred.

The D.C. police department still must get approval from Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey and the D.C. City Council before going forward with the project, Ms. Howell said.