AI-Powered Tech Put a 65-Year-Old in Jail For Almost a Year Despite 'Insufficient Evidence' (apnews.com) 98
"ShotSpotter" is an AI-powered tool that claims it can detect the sound of gunshots. To install it can cost up to $95,000 per square mile — every year — reports the Associated Press.
There's just one problem. "The algorithm that analyzes sounds to distinguish gunshots from other noises has never been peer reviewed by outside academics or experts." "The concern about ShotSpotter being used as direct evidence is that there are simply no studies out there to establish the validity or the reliability of the technology. Nothing," said Tania Brief, a staff attorney at The Innocence Project, a nonprofit that seeks to reverse wrongful convictions.
A 2011 study commissioned by the company found that dumpsters, trucks, motorcycles, helicopters, fireworks, construction, trash pickup and church bells have all triggered false positive alerts, mistaking these sounds for gunshots. ShotSpotter CEO Ralph Clark said the company is constantly improving its audio classifications, but the system still logs a small percentage of false positives. In the past, these false alerts — and lack of alerts — have prompted cities from Charlotte, North Carolina, to San Antonio, Texas, to end their ShotSpotter contracts, the AP found.
And the potential for problems isn't just hypothetical. Just ask 65-year-old Michael Williams: Williams was jailed last August, accused of killing a young man from the neighborhood who asked him for a ride during a night of unrest over police brutality in May... "I kept trying to figure out, how can they get away with using the technology like that against me?" said Williams, speaking publicly for the first time about his ordeal. "That's not fair." Williams sat behind bars for nearly a year before a judge dismissed the case against him last month at the request of prosecutors, who said they had insufficient evidence.
Williams' experience highlights the real-world impacts of society's growing reliance on algorithms to help make consequential decisions about many aspects of public life... ShotSpotter evidence has increasingly been admitted in court cases around the country, now totaling some 200. ShotSpotter's website says it's "a leader in precision policing technology solutions" that helps stop gun violence by using "sensors, algorithms and artificial intelligence" to classify 14 million sounds in its proprietary database as gunshots or something else. But an Associated Press investigation, based on a review of thousands of internal documents, emails, presentations and confidential contracts, along with interviews with dozens of public defenders in communities where ShotSpotter has been deployed, has identified a number of serious flaws in using ShotSpotter as evidentiary support for prosecutors. AP's investigation found the system can miss live gunfire right under its microphones, or misclassify the sounds of fireworks or cars backfiring as gunshots.
Forensic reports prepared by ShotSpotter's employees have been used in court to improperly claim that a defendant shot at police, or provide questionable counts of the number of shots allegedly fired by defendants. Judges in a number of cases have thrown out the evidence... The company's methods for identifying gunshots aren't always guided solely by the technology. ShotSpotter employees can, and often do, change the source of sounds picked up by its sensors after listening to audio recordings, introducing the possibility of human bias into the gunshot detection algorithm. Employees can and do modify the location or number of shots fired at the request of police, according to court records. And in the past, city dispatchers or police themselves could also make some of these changes.
Three more eye-popping details from the AP's 4,000-word exposé
There's just one problem. "The algorithm that analyzes sounds to distinguish gunshots from other noises has never been peer reviewed by outside academics or experts." "The concern about ShotSpotter being used as direct evidence is that there are simply no studies out there to establish the validity or the reliability of the technology. Nothing," said Tania Brief, a staff attorney at The Innocence Project, a nonprofit that seeks to reverse wrongful convictions.
A 2011 study commissioned by the company found that dumpsters, trucks, motorcycles, helicopters, fireworks, construction, trash pickup and church bells have all triggered false positive alerts, mistaking these sounds for gunshots. ShotSpotter CEO Ralph Clark said the company is constantly improving its audio classifications, but the system still logs a small percentage of false positives. In the past, these false alerts — and lack of alerts — have prompted cities from Charlotte, North Carolina, to San Antonio, Texas, to end their ShotSpotter contracts, the AP found.
And the potential for problems isn't just hypothetical. Just ask 65-year-old Michael Williams: Williams was jailed last August, accused of killing a young man from the neighborhood who asked him for a ride during a night of unrest over police brutality in May... "I kept trying to figure out, how can they get away with using the technology like that against me?" said Williams, speaking publicly for the first time about his ordeal. "That's not fair." Williams sat behind bars for nearly a year before a judge dismissed the case against him last month at the request of prosecutors, who said they had insufficient evidence.
Williams' experience highlights the real-world impacts of society's growing reliance on algorithms to help make consequential decisions about many aspects of public life... ShotSpotter evidence has increasingly been admitted in court cases around the country, now totaling some 200. ShotSpotter's website says it's "a leader in precision policing technology solutions" that helps stop gun violence by using "sensors, algorithms and artificial intelligence" to classify 14 million sounds in its proprietary database as gunshots or something else. But an Associated Press investigation, based on a review of thousands of internal documents, emails, presentations and confidential contracts, along with interviews with dozens of public defenders in communities where ShotSpotter has been deployed, has identified a number of serious flaws in using ShotSpotter as evidentiary support for prosecutors. AP's investigation found the system can miss live gunfire right under its microphones, or misclassify the sounds of fireworks or cars backfiring as gunshots.
Forensic reports prepared by ShotSpotter's employees have been used in court to improperly claim that a defendant shot at police, or provide questionable counts of the number of shots allegedly fired by defendants. Judges in a number of cases have thrown out the evidence... The company's methods for identifying gunshots aren't always guided solely by the technology. ShotSpotter employees can, and often do, change the source of sounds picked up by its sensors after listening to audio recordings, introducing the possibility of human bias into the gunshot detection algorithm. Employees can and do modify the location or number of shots fired at the request of police, according to court records. And in the past, city dispatchers or police themselves could also make some of these changes.
Three more eye-popping details from the AP's 4,000-word exposé
- "One study published in April in the peer-reviewed Journal of Urban Health examined ShotSpotter in 68 large, metropolitan counties from 1999 to 2016, the largest review to date. It found that the technology didn't reduce gun violence or increase community safety..."
- "Forensic tools such as DNA and ballistics evidence used by prosecutors have had their methodologies examined in painstaking detail for decades, but ShotSpotter claims its software is proprietary, and won't release its algorithm..."
- "In 2018, it acquired a predictive policing company called HunchLab, which integrates its AI models with ShotSpotter's gunshot detection data to purportedly predict crime before it happens."
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The Turner Diaries is a 1978 novel by William Luther Pierce, ... All groups opposed by the novel's protagonist, Earl Turnerâ"including Jews, non-whites, "liberal actors", and politiciansâ"are exterminated.
Just link the wikipedia page, its fiction for fucks sake. Stupid trolls, so many words for such a short thought.
Police Are Telling ShotSpotter To Alter Evidence (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Police Are Telling ShotSpotter To Alter Evidenc (Score:5, Interesting)
And that is why there are calls to "de-fund the police". They have no excuse here. There is no way to spin the story that doesn't come down to knowingly subverting the law and the criminal justice system. That is, knowing criminal behavior worthy in itself of prison time.
The part that BLM gets wrong is in thinking only black people are targeted by police for perversion of justice. To be fair, black people are targeted more frequently, mostly based on opportunity and likelihood of connections that might rumble their game.
Re:Police Are Telling ShotSpotter To Alter Evidenc (Score:5, Insightful)
First, that doesn't matter to the people who get screwed, for example by a very expensive but nearly worthless system that is abused more often than it proves useful.
Second, where are those tens of thousands of cops when the law is being routinely broken right in the police station?
As for your poor analogy, I suggest first that we stop handing out free Viagra to known rapists.
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I'm not saying it does matter to the people getting screwed.
These people didn't deserve it. And they deserve recompense for these incidents.
What I'm saying is you're being counter-factual.
Nothing more. Nothing less.
And if you think you have a system that'd work BETTER, trot it out for review.
Otherwise all you're doing is useless bitching.
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So what fact do you allege I have run counter to?
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In that case, it is you being counter factual. I'm asking why the incidents keep happening time after time to the point that it can be considered unwritten policy.
If every once in a while, someone picks a pocket in the park, then yes, law enforcement can't be perfect. OTOH, if 25% of people who go to the park get their pocket picked and there have been no arrests in 5 years then it's a different problem.
Far too often, police mis-conduct and prosecutorial misconduct come out and there is no apparent investig
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Yes, the guy will sue. That's civil action, where's the CRIMINAL action?
As for the rest, unless you've been living under a rock, you would have seen them. Plenty have come up right here on /. Just in case, here's a to start from. That's just some of the ones who actually went to prison. It's a long list of coerced confessions, shoddy detective work, evidence suppression, and zero consequences for the people responsible. That is, no criminal prosecution and the taxpayers taking care of the civil penalties. [innocenceproject.org]
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You're making no sense. First you claim nothing's wrong, then when I show you many many examples, you claim I'm expecting a sudden turn-around. Have you lost the thread somewhere?
The sub-topic was where are those tens of thousands of good cops when the crime is happening right there in the police station.
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Do you need me to shovel this sand back over your head or can you manage OK by yourself?
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Please come back when you DO finally grok these things.
Reading the thread and not participating (until now), and I have to say that I agree with him/her - it appears to the outside observer that it is you who don't know what you're talking about and/or have lost the thread of the argument.
And your arrogant, snarky response does nothing but reinforce that.
Re:Police Are Telling ShotSpotter To Alter Evidenc (Score:5, Informative)
The real problem is you're painting tens of thousands of honest cops with the actions of a microcosm of the law enforcement community.
The real problem is that the law enforcement community tend to protect their own [reuters.com] even when they're known to be dishonest and corrupt, making it difficult to discipline [motherjones.com] or prosecute them [washingtonpost.com], due to qualified immunity and the backing of [newyorker.com] the police unions [nationalaffairs.com].
Re:Police Are Telling ShotSpotter To Alter Evidenc (Score:5, Insightful)
Those tens of thousands of honest cops are complicit if they don’t say anything.
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You need to cut your dick off.
Congratulations on not knowing what "defunding the police is". Hint: It doesn't mean getting rid of police, it means using the money they spend on completely worthless systems of oppression like this ShotSpotter piece of shit, and instead spending it on social programs to reduce crime.
Please don't cut your dick off. Do however cut your balls off, we don't need your stupidity reproducing.
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Gun violence is surging in Portland, but numbers show that is the case in nearly every major city nationwide. ..
Re: Police Are Telling ShotSpotter To Alter Eviden (Score:2)
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The biggest problem with these 8M+ ID shill accounts is that they since they have foreign keyboards they have to use an IME, and they don't realize /. doesn't support Unicode. :)
Re:Police Are Telling ShotSpotter To Alter Evidenc (Score:4, Insightful)
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For example, they could quit expending $95,000/sq. mi./year on snake oil. They could cut back on the military hardware (even when loaned from the military, even the maintenance costs more than payments on a more reasonable vehicle). Not blowing a ton of money on questionable roadside drug test kits every time they spot doughnut glaze crumbs could help.
Re:Police Are Telling ShotSpotter To Alter Evidenc (Score:5, Insightful)
What puzzles me is that the app output is accepted as evidence in a court of law. But that is hardly the fault of the police. Or even the prosecutor.
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If TFA is right about the false positive rate from dumpsters banging, etc then even use as a pointer to evidence may be a waste of resources.
It is the police and prosecutors that pulled the wool over the court's eyes claiming capabilities and trustworthiness that Shotspotter does not actually have.
storage failure (Score:2)
among other things.
Guilty (Score:5, Interesting)
> Williams sat behind bars for nearly a year before a judge dismissed the case against him last month at the request of prosecutors, who said they had insufficient evidence.
How come this guy was in jail for a year until the *prosecution* says "sorry, my bad, we have no proof"?
In the meantime he may have lost his job, house, etc.
bail costs money (Score:5, Insightful)
bail costs money
Re: bail costs money (Score:5, Insightful)
He was poor (Score:2)
So serves him right.
But why dd they let him go? Why would a prosecutor embaras themselves by letting someone go after keeping them for a year? Surely the normal course of action would be to plea bargain him to some minor crime that has a one year sentence, no fuss, everyone happy. There must be some nasty politics going on inside the prosecutor's office in which one prosecutor wanted to screw another one.
Re: bail costs money (Score:3)
The Chief of Police at the time was and remains black. The Cook County State's Attorney was and remains black. The Mayor was and remains black.
While race is an emotionally satisfying explanation for you, it is a distraction from the incompetence and indifference to humanity that led to Williams' incarceration. Or am I wrong here? Is there evidence for this specific case that'd point to a racial motive?
Re: Guilty (Score:3)
Re:Guilty (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't understand how ShotSpotter comes into play here at all. The article says Williams picked up a passenger in the midst of rioting. According to Williams, as they were stopped at a stop light, another car pulled up, and the driver of that car shot into Williams' car, killing the passenger (the passenger had also been the target of a driveby some weeks before). Williams drove the passenger to a hospital. Passenger died.
So how could ShotSpotter possibly make a difference? There was a shooting. It was in a car. It was either in the same car or from a neighboring car. Surely ballistics, blood spray, etc., could tell approximately as much. So, what possible role does Shotspotter play?
It took 3 months for police to gather evidence, interrogate Williams, and then arrest him. It seems like something was going on in those 3 months, and it seems like we don't have enough details to know what went wrong. From what we do know, it certainly seems like a grievous error occurred.
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It sounds to me like the police had to make it look like they were doing something, for political reasons most likely. Either way, this guy can easily sue for a few million.
Re: Guilty (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Guilty (Score:5, Insightful)
Why do you think only "leftists" would be concerned about someone held in jail FOR A YEAR without sufficient evidence?
This is the very definition of government overreach and abuse of power. Where are all the "small-government" conservatives? Where are the people claiming that they support "freedom"?
Could it be that the race of the people often jailed in cases like these is a bigger factor than any supposed principles espoused by people accusing others of having a "hissy fit"?
Re: Guilty (Score:2, Funny)
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If you think this bullshit is unique to Democratic parts of the country, then you are really not paying attention. This is a nationwide problem, with plenty of Republicans joining in.
Joe Arpaio and David Clarke became fucking celebrities in right-wing land for crap like this.
Near me, a very Republican county keeps electing DAs who withhold and fabricate evidence: http://mimesislaw.com/fault-li... [mimesislaw.com]
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So your complaint is that a Republican showed a corrupt 63-year-old Democratic politician a little mercy by commuting his sentence from 14 to 10 years? And that's supposed to be comparable to a prosecutor keeping someone in jail without enough evidence to prosecute them? Or to the corrupt Democrat's actions himself.
You know executive commutations like that are legal, right? Not examples of corruption.
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Because he wasn't white.
Re:Guilty (Score:5, Interesting)
So you're saying only a leftist would show enough fiscal responsibility to terminate spending $95,000/sq. mi./year due to ineffectiveness?
Meanwhile, nobody is disputing that the man spent a year in jail in spite of insufficient evidence. I'm guessing the prosecutor that finally gave up had a nicer year than he did.
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yeah but only the leftists care.
If he would up in jail, he must have done something to deserve it. It's punishment from god.
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You forgot the "sarcasm" tags. Only in America would that Calvinist BS fly.
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It's the leftist Democrats running the Cook County State Attorney's office who kept this guy in jail for a year, despite lack of evidence. They clearly didn't care.
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yeah but only the leftists care.
That's what they like to think. In practice, it is a good deal more complicated. One of my theories is that Marxists don't actually care for the workers. The proletariat are soldiers in the struggle, and the real goal is revolution and the destruction of capitalism. On the other hand, my definitely libertarian friend is not a heartless capitalist. He believes that giving people freedom to better themselves is what will end the injustices of poverty. All points worth arguing, and definitely not a done deal.
Re:Guilty (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, there is a faction that believes police must be given free rein. That is, arrest them all if they seem even remotely guilty, even if innocent, so that there's no chance of anyone guilty being freed. Which means that all the people who don't look guilty can live carefree lives.
Prosecutors have too much power I think. Too often grand juries just rubberstamp what the prosecutors ask for. And being an elected office they feel more compelled to base their job about being re-elected than in finding justice. Being re-elected in many places means convictions, convictions, and more convictions. There's immense pressure to prosecute someone even without good evidence.
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Prosecutors have too much power I think.
Or poor people can't afford good enough lawyers. As they say, the USA has the best legal system that money can buy.
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Prosecutors have too much power and the whole justice system operates under the fiction that being held for trial, tried and found not-guilty is not in itself a harm (mental, financial, and sometimes physical) or punishment for an innocent citizen. For that matter, being a suspect for a protracted period of time is harmful (certainly mentally, sometimes financially or rarely physically).
I'm reminded of an incident in Atlanta Ga. a few years ago where a judge ordered a fair number of people being held for mi
Re:Guilty (Score:5, Insightful)
You could always read the fucking article.
But the key evidence against Williams didn’t come from an eyewitness or an informant; it came from a clip of noiseless security video showing a car driving through an intersection, and a loud bang picked up by a network of surveillance microphones. Prosecutors said technology powered by a secret algorithm that analyzed noises detected by the sensors indicated Williams shot and killed the man.
The most crucial part:
The company’s methods for identifying gunshots aren’t always guided solely by the technology. ShotSpotter employees can, and often do, change the source of sounds picked up by its sensors after listening to audio recordings, introducing the possibility of human bias into the gunshot detection algorithm. Employees can and do modify the location or number of shots fired at the request of police, according to court records. And in the past, city dispatchers or police themselves could also make some of these changes.
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Yes, that's just more from the article that doesn't seem to implicate Shotspotter at all in the decision-making process. My emphasis:
But the key evidence against Williams didn’t come from an eyewitness or an informant; it came from a clip of noiseless security video showing a car driving through an intersection
Not Shotspotter.
and a loud bang picked up by a network of surveillance microphones. Prosecutors said technology powered by a secret algorithm that analyzed noises detected by the sensors indicated Williams shot and killed the man.
This doesn't make any sense. Obviously there was a shot. Someone was shot and killed so there's no disputing that. It doesn't even seem to be in dispute that the shot was close, though my hackles go up when this AP article doesn't make any mention of any other physical evidence, etc. If I had to bet, I would bet there is more to the story. If the claim is that
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"The key evidence came from video of a car driving through an intersection, and a loud bang picked up by acoustic sensors. Prosecutors said audio technology powered by a secret algorithm indicated Williams shot and killed the man inside his car. “I kept trying to figure out, how can they get away with using the technology like that against me?” said Williams. “That’s not fair.”
Maybe 1) Shotspotter said the shot probably came from inside a closed space and from a probable locati
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So in other words, the company is incentivized to manufacture evidence at the behest of prosecutors because their contacts depend on showing ongoing effectiveness of the system while the "evidence" gets the patina of AI neutrality.
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Just think of how many cases will have to be overturned or retried because of the cops tampering with evidence. You and me would be doing jail time for evidence tampering. But nothing will happen to the cops.
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ShotSpotter employees can, and often do, change the source of sounds picked up by its sensors after listening to audio recordings
Oh, I know how that works. When I was working in a warehouse, my company introduced a new performance analysis system to track all of our movements. Immediately everybody knew something was wrong when our best workers were getting 30% while slackers were getting 300%. The numbers were all over the place. Management told us not to worry, as all of the numbers were reviewed and "manually adjusted" after each shift to compensate for the type of job, equipment we were using, and number of breaks we were sup
It was the excuse the prosecutor used (Score:4, Insightful)
Best part is the guy got COVID twice in jail, and now can't feed himself because he's got tremors can can't hold a spoon. He's gonna sue the city and somebody (i.e. the lawyer) is gonna walk away with a ton of money.
What I'd really like to see is how much those lawsuits cost cities. I know that "Toughest Sherri f" asshole from Arizona cost his city something like $30 million before the voters got tired of paying for him to be a racist. But I'm pretty sure after the first $15 million they'd have kicked him to the curb if we talked about it more.
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They didn't find a gun or evidence he'd shot one.
Well, he is a bloke living in the USA, so of course he has got a gun. Doesn't everybody in the USA have at least one gun? Maybe he hid the gun. In that case, not finding a gun would be kind of suspicious on its own.
Sorry, I am from the UK, where most people don't own guns, and I can't resist a dig at my American friends. You carry on now, and have a nice day.
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Well, he is a bloke living in the USA, so of course he has got a gun.
While there are enough privately-owned guns in the US for everyone to have one with a bunch to spare, they aren't evenly distributed. Some of us have a bunch. Others have none. It comes out to maybe half own or have access to a gun.
Given the laws in play, not all that many law-abiding people are able to carry them as they go about their business. This varies from place to place - with the up-close-and-personal crime victimization rate
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maybe they knew the real shooters and he was just a scapegoat?
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Plea agreements shouldn't be allowed anywhere.
But what about the difference between a criminal who shows remorse, compared to one who does not? You plead guilty if you know you did wrong, and that should count in your favour when a penalty is decided. The really bad villains show no remorse, so get stiffer penalties. I agree that plea agreements can be abused by prosecutors, to just get an easy result, but I would not ban them altogether.
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It would be very far from the first time police or prosecutors claimed forensics could determine things well beyond their actual ability. It would also be far from the first time a detective took neutral evidence as supporting his theory because he was starting with a conclusion and working the "proof" backwards to the evidence.
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The Slashdot summary and AP article both contain this line:
ShotSpotter employees can, and often do, change the source of sounds picked up by its sensors after listening to audio recordings, introducing the possibility of human bias into the gunshot detection algorithm.
"Changing the source"
Perhaps it's just me that had trouble parsing that, but I first wondered if it meant what you suggested--that ShotSpotter changed where they claimed the microphone(s) were located--but I think it actually means that ShotSpotter is changing the calculated location of the source of the sound.
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So, what possible role does Shotspotter play?
It could guide a police investigation, without being presented as evidence in court. A crime has been committed, and the police are looking for suspects. They need to direct their efforts effectively, or they are just blundering about without a clue where to look. Once they start looking in the right places, they can get some evidence that will stand up in court, e,g. by interviewing suspects, and picking up forensics.
Having said Shotspotter could have a role in proper police investigations, it looks like i
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Because the judge ordered him held without bail. They had video evidence of him riding through a red light in the location they said the disputed shot rang out, the victim was killed in his car and he had been convicted for attempted murder and firing a weapon in anger before.
https://chicago.suntimes.com/c... [suntimes.com]
I suspect part of the problem is that people are too in love with absolutes and don't want to accept everything is Bayesian. The prosecutor tells shotspotter to turn something with lower certainty into
No mention of the Slashdot article from last month (Score:5, Informative)
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Police Are Telling ShotSpotter To Alter Evidence From Gunshot-Detecting AI [slashdot.org]: "testimony from ShotSpotter's favored expert witness[] suggests that the company's analysts frequently modify alerts at the request of police departments - some of which appear to be grasping for evidence that supports their narrative of events."
What? You expect actual editing on \. Are you new here or something?
It was already a pretty long post (Score:2)
To prevent this from happening... (Score:2)
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you forgot the /s
This needs to stop. Where are the courts? (Score:2)
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself; nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; n
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Where are the courts?
Arguing about assault clips and shoulder things that go up.
I suspect that if this evidence (ShotSpotter) was ever actually introduced in a hearing and the courts decided that there was no case, that would represent a public record. And a data point that such 'evidence' has limited value. They waited for the prosecutor to drop the case with no evidence presented. So the veracity of the AI stands unchallenged by this case.
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To be honest, Grand Juries are half the problem.
In a grand jury, theres no defence, there aren't really rules of evidence, or really anything. Its just a prosecutor convincing an empanelled jury that this guy probably did it, and here look at this dumb thing a qualified and experience judge would never allow in a courtroom. And so some poor fool ends up spending a year in the hole while the prosecutor faffs about trying to find evidence that an *actual* courtroom would find compelling.
Combined with the utte
Wrong problem (Score:2)
I would say the real issue is that it took a year for somebody to look at the evidence⦠i just do not understand how this can happen. In my country at least there needs to be a first review within a few days, then a more thorough second review within 14 days. I would assume the US has a similar arrangement?
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They need to have sufficient evidence to press charges, then there would be a preliminary hearing relatively quickly that should require sufficient evidence to hold the person or set a bail amount.
He should get some money out of this, although it is never enough.
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You would assume wrong. Mostly because this sort of thing is covered by State laws, NOT Federal laws. Which means that there are 51 potentially different standards that might apply, dep
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One major factor is that he was jailed during the pandemic. This has hit the courts in terms of the number of personnel working and so forth. Court hearings have been delayed in most places and large backlogs have been built up. Generally a court hearing is needed before anything substantial happens, no clerk seeing something odd has a power to change things.
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The problem is the justice system, not the technology. All technology has limits. This is potentially useful, but only for generating leads it is not evidence. The justice system should have recognised that from the start. The person responsible needs to face charges for unlawful imprisonment and the victim needs to receive punitive compensation from the responsible organisations.
Was other forensic evidence consistent? (Score:2)
Something's missing (Score:2)
What ever happened to the right to a speedy trial?
Not a technology platform. (Score:2)
Shotspotter is not a technology platform. It is an evidence manufacturing service.
Luckily, every dismissal like this makes future dismissals more likely and easier to attain.
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Luckily, every dismissal like this makes future dismissals more likely and easier to attain.
I would not be happy if all high-tech police investigation methods were discredited, just because one vendor tampered with digital evidence. Many people who are brought to court on criminal charges are guilty, though not all of them, of course, or there would not be much point in arguing cases in law courts. I don't agree with a defence that discredits evidence just because it uses clever computer algorithms. I like the idea that the police can track down child molesters and terrorists, using modern compute
No the DA and cops did. (Score:2)
While this trend of flawed virtual intelligence is showing some huge bugs and biases. It is up to the judge, DA and cops to properly vet what they use as evidence. I'm not even sure if such matches if true are even legal, as I am not a lawyer.
Both Judges and DA's are elected officials making them politicians, so they are motivated to seem tough on crime. They knowingly convict innocent people daily.
Most cops have less training than my plumber, not to disparage but it's based in fact. How does such a blu
Absolute sociopaths (Score:2)
Shame on the police for being rubes enough to fall for this snake oil, yes, but I have nothing but pure contempt for the sleazebucket crooks who developed and marketed it to cops in the first place. May it all come back to them tenfold.