CLEVELAND — Cleveland council members raised questions, including concerns about a possible conflict of interest, regarding the city’s proposal to change tech companies that track gunfire.
Right now, Cleveland has ShotSpotter through April 2026.
On Friday, the council's public safety committee heard from Cleveland State University professors of criminology and sociology about their evaluation of ShotSpotter.
Here is the full report:
The researchers said the technology is accurate and mostly reliable.
But the alerts from ShotSpotter have put more strain on police, creating longer response times for Priority 1 calls, which are the most serious.
Researchers also say people aren’t calling 911 because of distrust of police and backlash from neighbors.
With representatives from ShotSpotter at the table during the special safety committee hearing, Public Safety Director Wayne Drummond said they don’t plan to renew ShotSpotter’s contract.
Last month, the city already proposed doing business with Flock Safety for gunfire detection. According to the proposal, Flock's technology can also detect street takeovers and crashes.
Read the proposals below:
Cleveland already uses Flock for license plate readers.
They did it without asking for proposals from any other company.
Former council member Kerry McCormack is now working for Flock.
Council member Rebecca Maurer expressed her concerns about a possible conflict of interest.
"I hope you understand the hesitancy I have given. A member of this body just departed to take a job at Flock, that we now have a sole source contract without an RFP process, that would have allowed some amount of time to work out questions about our comfortability with surveillance,” Maurer said.
Drummond said McCormack’s job with Flock has nothing to do with the possible deal.
Last week, News 5 Investigators sat down with Safety Chair Mike Polensek and asked whether he’s sold on Flock.
“Well you know what, if you don’t have the people to respond, you could be detecting somebody’s birthday party, but if you don’t have the people to respond to it, there’s the challenge,” Polsensek said.
Polensek said he wants to make sure the council does the right thing and will do a deep dive into the Flock Safety proposal.
But what about those increased response times? News 5 Investigators found it took over an hour for police to respond to the most urgent calls.
That part of the story can be seen next week on News 5.
