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Fayetteville council renews ShotSpotter contract after divided debate over effectiveness and priorities
Summary
After council debate, Fayetteville approved a ShotSpotter surveillance contract renewal option on June 22; opponents cited an internal evaluation that found little evidence the system independently improved investigative outcomes and urged funding alternatives such as mental-health response teams.
FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. — The Fayetteville City Council on Monday debated and moved forward with a multi-year renewal of the city’s acoustic gunshot-detection contract amid sharp disagreement over the technology’s value and budget trade-offs.
Councilmember Jonathan McMillan asked council to reject a three-year renewal — described in staff remarks as a three-year, $675,000 contract (about $225,000 per year) — arguing the city’s internal evaluations and an outside review found no evidence that ShotSpotter alerts, when not paired with a 911 call, meaningfully improve case outcomes such as shell-casing recovery, witness identification or arrests. McMillan said the contract represented money that could be spent on services such as mental-health response units and violence-interruption programs.
Several council members and the police chief defended the system as one tool among many that helps officers respond faster and supports public safety in neighborhoods that requested coverage. Supporters also noted a three-year contract locks in pricing and provides a longer dataset for analysis.
Council discussion referenced prior staff reports and a Wilson Center evaluation that cautioned the data environment made it difficult to isolate the system’s added value. The clerk recorded the motion as carrying with "six for those voting" in the transcript excerpt; a full roll-call tally was not recorded in the available excerpt.
Council members asked staff to continue tracking performance metrics and to weigh community priorities against surveillance and enforcement costs.
