Gunshot detection (ShotSpotter and Flock Raven)
Sound
This page is public-interest research. An argument grade is not a court finding. A watchdog page describes the device. It is not proof a Nevada agency bought it or turned a feature on. A product description is not a Nevada practice. Agencies are not merged: the City of Las Vegas Department of Public Safety, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, the Clark County School District, the City of Reno, and the Nevada Department of Public Safety stay separate. A hotlist hit is not a confirmed crime. Legal review of this page is unverified.
What it does
Gunshot detection uses microphones, usually on street lights, to hear a loud noise, decide whether it matches a gunshot, and estimate where the sound came from by comparing arrival times at several sensors. ShotSpotter and Flock Raven are two products of this type. An alert is a classification. It is not proof a gun was fired. EFF says the same microphones can capture voices. Recording of voices is the environmental-audio card.
Privacy watchdog concerns
- Electronic Frontier Foundation. Gunshot Detection. EFF says acoustic gunshot systems use microphones to detect and locate a possible gunshot, that the match is often wrong, and that the same microphones can capture voices. EFF names ShotSpotter and Flock Raven as products of this type. This is EFF’s claim. It is not an LVMPD purchase.
- Electronic Frontier Foundation. Flock’s Gunshot Detection Microphones Will Start Listening for Human Voices. EFF says Flock’s Raven product is acoustic gunshot detection and that Flock marketed a feature to alert on sounds of human distress. EFF says a street microphone that listens for voices raises eavesdropping questions. This is EFF’s claim about the product. It is not a finding that a Nevada agency turned that feature on.
Constitutional issues
Unresolved question
Fourth Amendment
Warrant practice not established for a Nevada agency
Gunshot detection (ShotSpotter and Flock Raven): An alert is not proof of a shooting. No Nevada installation is confirmed. The policy PDF is not attached. EFF’s accuracy and voice-recording concerns are EFF’s claims, not Nevada incidents. No holding is borrowed from a case this page did not open.
No decision in this library decides gunshot detection. The ShotSpotter policy page is a title, not an opinion. Court cases discussed on the watchdog pages were not opened and are not added.
Statutes attached to read, not findings.
- NRS Chapter 239. Nevada public-records law is the route to ask for contracts, policies, and logs. Citing it is not a finding that a surveillance practice is unlawful.
- Nevada Constitution art. 1, § 18. State search-and-seizure provision. This page does not quote the section. No section anchor was verified. It is listed only where a search question is actually implicated.
- 42 U.S.C. § 1983. A civil remedy for a deprivation of federal rights under color of state law. It is not a warrant statute, and it does not itself make a surveillance practice unlawful.
Nevada use
Not documented on this page. An LVMPD ShotSpotter policy title is identified. The PDF is not attached and does not confirm an installation. Flock Raven is not an LVMPD purchase on this page.
Policy title identified for LVMPD. Deployment not confirmed. ShotSpotter and Flock Raven are product types, not a purchase on this page.
See also: Acoustic triangulation; Environmental audio
Policy page. Policy title identified on this site. The source PDF is not attached. This is not a confirmed deployment.
Next record
Gunshot detection (ShotSpotter and Flock Raven): Attach the policy PDF before quoting it. Do not describe ShotSpotter or Raven as an LVMPD purchase.
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