Rocky Mount Police present plan to place gunshot-detection sensors at Rocky Mount High; MOU to be advanced to full board

Rocky Mount Police Department representatives presented a plan to a Nash County Public Schools committee to install gunshot-detection sensors produced by Flock Safety at Rocky Mount High and, later, additional nearby schools. The department said the devices would be deployed under a memorandum of understanding (MOU) allowing equipment on school property and that the vendor would own hardware while the police would hold and access incident data via the vendor platform.

The presentation focused on how the sensors detect sound signatures associated with gunfire and send alerts to law enforcement. Speaker 2, the presenting Rocky Mount PD representative, summarized the technology and its limits: "I'm here to talk to you about a company that we are partnered with, Flock," and said the system is "not listening all the time" and that the department receives historical recordings tied to an alert rather than continuous live audio. He told the committee the product is "CJIS compliant with the state and the federal." The presentation described triangulation-based alerts and said officers would be notified and could respond to a reported location.

Why it matters: the committee was asked to approve an MOU so installations could proceed without additional cost to the school system beyond consenting to host the equipment. Speaker 2 stated that the sensors are solar powered and use cellular communications, and said, "It costs you nothing except an MOU agreement with us to allow us on the site to put the equipment there and to maintain it." Committee members pressed for clarity on operational limits, maintenance and funding; a committee member (Speaker 3) interrupted to explain the MOU was being presented to the full board sooner than usual because it arrived to committee one day late: "That's why we're bringing it tonight... we didn't wanna delay it another month."

Key details and uncertainties: the department said it would coordinate installation locations with school staff and the department's Sergeant Summerlin would assist on-site; the PD also said it would work with school public information officers to inform the community. The presentation named Rock Mount Middle and Tar River Academy as planned additions to the coverage area later this year. The transcript records a reference to increasing "guardian in a campus 70%" in an unrelated agenda item, but the meaning and calculation for that figure are not clarified in the record. Funding sources for long-term maintenance or any recurring sensor fees were not specified in the committee discussion.

Quotes from the record illustrate the framing and limits offered by the presenters: "It's not listening all the time... We're listening to that historic," and "we own the data" (Speaker 2). Committee members asked about past equipment malfunctions and vendor response times; the presenters said they had experienced at least one hardware malfunction that a vendor fixed "weeks later."

The committee expressed general support for the concept and for advancing the MOU to the full school board for consideration so the installations can proceed; the committee closed the presentation by thanking Rocky Mount PD and asking that the MOU be placed on the board agenda promptly. The transcript does not record a final board vote on the MOU in this meeting.