01 August 2021

Changing ShotSpotter Evidence to Support Prosecution

I'm shocked - Shocked! - to discover that prosecutors would lie, and fabricate evidence. Police Are Telling ShotSpotter to Alter Evidence From Gunshot-Detecting AI

Okay, so I'm not at all shocked.

But after the 11:46 p.m. alert came in, a ShotSpotter analyst manually overrode the algorithms and “reclassified” the sound as a gunshot. Then, months later and after “post-processing,” another ShotSpotter analyst changed the alert’s coordinates to a location on South Stony Island Drive near where Williams’ car was seen on camera.

“Through this human-involved method, the ShotSpotter output in this case was dramatically transformed from data that did not support criminal charges of any kind to data that now forms the centerpiece of the prosecution’s murder case against Mr. Williams,” the public defender wrote in the motion.

"Trust the Science." And the technology. And if it doesn't say exactly what you want it to, well, we can fix that.

That motion was to have a judge review ShotSpotter as a whole. The prosecutors dropped the case, because we don't want all these questions to be asked and answered. That would be awkward, and it might impact our ability to railroad convict people.

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