Louisville Metro Police Department quietly reduced the city’s ShotSpotter gunshot-detection coverage by half, according to records recently obtained by The Courier Journal.
The devices, which alert officers to gunfire, now operate only within a six-square-mile section of Louisville’s predominantly Black West End.
Previously, the microphones also covered parts of Old Louisville, Smoketown, Newburg, Jacobs and Taylor Berry, according to a map attached to a contract addendum signed last year by LMPD Chief Paul Humphrey. Although he signed the addendum in February 2025, it states the coverage reduction from 12 square miles to six began in June 2024.
The Courier Journal obtained the agreement through Kentucky’s open records law.
In a January interview, Deputy Chief Emily McKinley defended the narrowed coverage, saying the system is deployed where it is most effective.
“I mean, if my arm is broken, I’m going to put a cast on this arm. I don’t need a cast on my entire body. I need to fix the problem,” she said.
To maintain coverage in the six-square-mile West End zone, Metro Government pays SoundThinking — the rebranded company operating ShotSpotter — $420,000 annually, or $70,000 per square mile. LMPD’s current one-year contract expires in June.
“When we’re spending money on technology, we’re going to put that money where it’s going to be the most useful,” McKinley added, pointing to high homicide rates in areas where ShotSpotter remains active.
ShotSpotter uses a network of microphones to triangulate potential gunfire quickly. The system helps police respond to shootings that may not be reported to 911 and can provide a more precise location than bystanders who heard but did not witness the incident.
Officers can also listen to suspected gunfire through the system, and before alerts are issued, ShotSpotter staff review the audio to confirm it was gunfire.
LMPD has used ShotSpotter since 2017. City data shows the system generated more than 780 alerts so far this year and more than 5,400 alerts last year.
The department says the technology allows officers to respond faster and potentially provide lifesaving aid to victims.
When the city first adopted ShotSpotter, it marketed the system as a way to reduce gun violence and improve arrests and prosecutions. Shortly after implementation, LMPD officials credited the technology with helping reduce shootings, according to past Courier Journal reporting.
Concerns over ShotSpotter, ‘hyper surveillance’
Louisville’s use of ShotSpotter in majority Black neighborhoods mirrors national trends. A 2024 analysis by WIRED of more than 25,000 ShotSpotter locations nationwide showed devices were disproportionately installed in minority communities.
A WIRED map of Louisville’s ShotSpotter locations — including areas no longer covered — showed most microphones concentrated in the West End.
Lyndon Pryor, CEO of the Louisville Urban League, questioned the system’s effectiveness and said the “hyper surveillance” of Black neighborhoods creates a psychological burden.
“You’re talking about putting a community, a largely Black area of town, under constant surveillance and now you’re doing it exclusively just to them,” he said. “The harm and the toll that takes on a community, just isn’t right and we should not take this thing lightly.”
He added: “If no one at the city is going to be concerned about the harm done with the hyper surveillance of a community, fine: Let’s be concerned then about the waste of taxpayer dollars.”
SoundThinking maintains that ShotSpotter is not surveillance technology and cannot be activated by human voices.
In an emailed statement, LMPD spokesperson Dwight Mitchell said: “ShotSpotter is not a surveillance tool; it is an emergency response tool that alerts police to a location when there is gunfire. That in itself is an indication that officers need to immediately respond. The faster we can get there, the faster we can assist potential victims.”
According to Louisville’s online gun violence dashboard, nearly half of the city’s homicides last year occurred in LMPD’s First and Second divisions, which cover the West End.
“If we look at maps and data, where the most people are being victimized when it comes to shootings and homicides, it is going to be the West End,” McKinley told The Courier Journal in January.
City publicly claims broader ShotSpotter footprint
Publicly, LMPD continues to describe ShotSpotter as active beyond the West End, even though contract documents suggest otherwise.
The department’s transparency website lists ShotSpotter as operating in the First, Second, Fourth and Sixth divisions.
However, the contract addendum map signed last year shows ShotSpotter deactivated across the entire Sixth Division and all but a small, block-sized section of the Fourth Division.
The city’s gun violence dashboard incorrectly states that “ShotSpotter detector boundaries have expanded over time.” It also cautions that areas with sharp increases in ShotSpotter alerts “should be treated with discretion.”
City data shows a significant decline in alerts after coverage shrank. In 2025, ShotSpotter alerts dropped more than 43% compared with the previous year.
Although LMPD’s contract indicates the department stopped using the devices in areas such as Old Louisville and Newburg in mid-2024, the online dashboard still recorded some alerts in those neighborhoods early last year.
It remains unclear why the city continued logging alerts in areas after coverage ended. LMPD did not respond to questions from The Courier Journal about why former coverage areas were still portrayed as active or how alerts were recorded after deactivation.
ShotSpotter effectiveness questioned
ShotSpotter has faced scrutiny nationwide, including in Louisville, over its effectiveness and cost.
In 2019, the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting reported that LMPD investigated only two out of every 10 ShotSpotter alerts.
That same year, then-Mayor Greg Fischer proposed eliminating ShotSpotter from his budget.
A 2022 investigation by WDRB found LMPD made just 59 arrests out of 14,629 ShotSpotter alerts over two years — a 0.004% arrest rate.
Chicago ended its use of ShotSpotter in 2024 after Mayor Brandon Johnson fulfilled a campaign promise to discontinue the service. Johnson called ShotSpotter “walkie-talkies on a stick” and argued the technology “played a pivotal role” in the 2021 police shooting of a 13-year-old responding to a ShotSpotter alert.
A 2022 investigation by Associated Press found ShotSpotter failed to detect gunfire “right under its microphones” while also misclassifying other sounds as gunshots. The report detailed how flawed ShotSpotter evidence contributed to an innocent man spending a year in jail.
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