GLENDALE, Ariz. — The Glendale Police Department said it's ready for anyone who takes their New Year's Eve celebrations a little too far -- emphasizing a zero-tolerance policy for celebratory gunfire.
Police said there were no ShotSpotter activations around midnight in 2020, and they want to see that again this year.
The department attributes the success to educating the community year-round, about the ShotSpotter program.
The ShotSpotter program works by covering a two-square-mile area in Glendale with microphones that pick up sounds of gunfire. Glendale police said the system can differentiate between fireworks and gunfire.
Once the system is activated, a notification is sent to California, analyzed and then sent back to Glendale police dispatch. Officers even get GPS coordinates of where the gun went off.
Police can also find out fast if there are any reports of people hit by gun shots. Without ShotSpotter technology, police said it would be more difficult to track down exact locations of gun shots.
Glendale Police Detective Brian Piech said the system was a success in Glendale as recent as Christmas Eve.
“We had an incident where ShotSpotter was activated," Piech said. "Patrol officers responded to that location. They found some scene casings in someone’s front yard and talked to the homeowner who admitted to firing his gun on Christmas Eve.”
Randomly firing a gun into the air is a felony. It falls under Shannon’s Law, named after Shannon Smith who was killed by random gunfire in her Phoenix back yard back in 1999.
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