Using ShotSpotter for Officer-Involved Shooting Cases

Initially, the Investigative Lead Summary (ILS) offers immediate access to date, time, approximate location, and incident audio links in the app and in the InSight historical database. The Detailed Forensic Report (DFR) is expedited in OIS situations, usually within 24-48 hours, and provides an expert, courtroom-ready analysis of shot timing, cadence, and location. In addition to the DFR, ShotSpotter forensic specialists can extract details that are particularly important in OIS investigations:

• Individual shot location and relative time: A pivotal question often arises: Did the suspect fire first, and if so, precisely when—relative to the officers’ response? ShotSpotter’s advanced acoustic sensor network captures audio evidence in real time, allowing forensic experts to dissect subsets of data for more precise results than the automated ILS. In the DFR, ShotSpotter experts lay out the timing and cadence of each shot to the millisecond, linked to the atomic clock for precise accuracy.

• Scene accuracy speeds evidence collection: Near-real-time alerts from the 24/7 Incident Review Center include the pinpoint location and number of rounds automatically detected. This essential information helps officers and technicians locate spent casings, projectiles, and other critical evidence at the scene, thus improving the preservation and collection of evidence.

• Accurate tally of rounds: Beyond timing and location, the accurate tally of rounds fired is a cornerstone of unraveling officer-involved shootings, which frequently involve multiple shooters. ShotSpotter forensic analysts can often access more audio files than the automatic capture represented by the ILS report, allowing them to locate audio pulses of additional rounds or nearby related gunfire. The resulting DFR provides this essential forensic detail.
• Potential shooter context: In the critical moments following gunfire, knowledge is power. ShotSpotter delivers instantaneously, tagging incidents with vital intelligence and relaying it directly to dispatch centers and mobile apps. Multiple Shooters, High-Capacity Firearm, Fully-Automatic Gunfire, and Drive-By Shooting (with mph and direction of travel) are some key real-time intel tags. In subsequent forensic analyses, ShotSpotter’s forensic experts rigorously verify and expand upon this data, delivering courtroom-ready evidence.

Documenting Ground Truth

The Ground Truth feature helps you close the loop between the alert and your case file:

• Officers can log evidence at the scene. For example, number of victims, shell casings, or property damage are documented directly in the app. Supervisors and detectives are alerted immediately so casings can be fast-tracked to NIBIN or other testing without waiting for full paperwork.
• Analysts and command staff can see Ground Truth status in InSight and generate reports, giving the agency instant visibility without digging through CAD or RMS entries.

On occasion, the 3+ required number of sensors do not detect the same gunfire. That may be due to the shooting occurring inside a vehicle or other closed space, the shooting happening just outside the designated coverage area, the use of small-caliber firearms or silencers, or environmental conditions interfering with the detection of gunfire.

To preserve the records for an OIS investigation, agencies must contact SoundThinking within 24 hours of gunfire that ShotSpotter did not detect. ShotSpotter technical staff will be able to determine whether any audio consistent with gunfire was captured. The 24-hour window is important as sensors automatically overwrite their data after 24 hours, only saving gunfire alert audio. Also important to note is that data from a shooting is automatically retained only if the requisite number of sensors captured the incident.

A practical checklist:

• Notify SoundThinking Support quickly of the OIS. Use the ShotSpotter app, or call, email, or chat with ShotSpotter customer support. Provide the incident address or GPS drop, date, and precise times. Request an expedited OIS DFR.
• Share agency identifiers. Case number, CAD/911 event numbers, and the lead investigator’s contact information.
• Confirm scene context. Note whether any shots may have been indoors, inside vehicles, or near reflecting surfaces. This helps analysts interpret or rule out acoustic anomalies.
• Preserve timing artifacts. CAD logs, AVL pings, BWC activation times, and radio timestamps help align the DFR timeline with other evidence.
• Retain the ILS for immediate use. The ILS is available from the app for 30 days, and from the ShotSpotter historical database, InSight, indefinitely. You can contact Customer Support for the ILS as well. Add the ILS to your case file so prosecutors can authenticate the existence of audio evidence while the DFR is being prepared.

For most OIS events, you can expect the DFR in 24–48 hours, which supports parallel administrative and criminal reviews, prosecutor intake, and early briefings to city leadership.