This App Helps People Report Gunshots–And Maintain Their Privacy

Brian La Cour has happily called Rundberg home for about 26 years – and despite the area's mixed reputation, it's where he and his wife have put down roots.

"We knew that it wasn't the greatest neighborhood in the world," La Cour says. "We weren't blind to that. It was just really beautiful… this kind of tree-lined street, and it seemed quiet."

One problem in the area, though, has come to the forefront of La Cour's life: gunfire.

"This can come in the form of celebratory gunfire, people shooting guns in the air, or a variety of criminal activity involving guns," La Cour says. "This has been a problem for a long time, and we've been frustrated for years trying to solve the problems in our area."

Celebratory gunfire may not be done with malicious criminal intent, but it still puts the community at risk.

La Cour says local attention on the issue grew after a resident spoke at a meeting of the North Austin Civic Association, a neighborhood organization covering the area, about a stray bullet that had gone into her young child’s room.

"She spotted a bullet, like, just a few feet away from his crib and she was horrified,” La Cour says. “That kicked everyone into high gear, trying to figure out how we're going to solve this problem."

The moment pushed La Cour, who serves as treasurer for NACA, to look for a community-based solution.

"I was looking for, I guess, a more technical solution to the problem," La Cour says. "I had been thinking for the longest time… wouldn't it be cool if we could somehow triangulate what I heard and what other people might have heard, and figure out where these things actually happened?"

That's when he came across a group of researchers at Vanderbilt University working on a way to detect and track gunfire within a community.

Will Hedgecock, the principal researcher on the project, says the team was initially skeptical of getting involved. Previously, an attempt to implement a similar-style project in Nashville, Tennessee, had failed due to constraints and red tape.

"So I told them, well, I think my community is different," La Cour says. "I've talked to my neighbors, we've spoken with APD, and they are interested in this. So I managed to convince them that it was worth giving this a shot."

Unfortunately, there are limits to what La Cour and NACA can attempt. According to La Cour, the cash-strapped neighborhood association runs on a shoestring annual budget of about $10,000. Hedgecock says the financial constraints shaped an important early direction for the design of the gunshot detection devices.

"Obviously, if we're trying to get this into the community's hands, it can't cost that much, right?" Hedgecock says. "So the first step was, first of all, what can we physically do to make the actual, hands-on, tangible technology affordable?"

Inside each box are computer chips, four microphones, a GPS chip and a cellular modem, Hedgecock says. The device listens for impulsive events – meaning extremely loud and sharp, sudden sounds – and uses AI to categorize their origin.

“It has been trained to understand the difference between a gunshot and a car backfire,” Hedgecock says.

Once the device detects a gunshot, it sends a timestamp and location to a server, which creates an incident alert. That alert goes out through a mobile app called CivicAlert.

Users of the app will receive a notification on their phone alerting them to the possible gunshot and its location.

“[The app] will provide the very clearest version of a three second audio clip so that people can listen to that and verify for themselves,” Hedgecock says.

Beyond Vanderbilt, the project is also receiving support from Steve Beck, a local gun expert; a Texas State University group focused on community engagement – as well as local volunteers.

"We identified the people that we needed to solve the problem. We had the right solution for that problem, and we had a clear plan of what we were going to do,” La Cour says. “I decided to… be there as the neighborhood representative only, and let other people do the technical work."

La Cour says he still doesn't know exactly how well the system will be received in the community. Rundberg is an extremely diverse community, with a large undocumented population.

"Historically, I think trust has been pretty good with APD, but now we see APD being forced to coordinate more with ICE," La Cour says. "There's more concerns, people are more reluctant, and I can't really blame them for feeling that way."

State law requires Texas police departments to comply with ICE. While the city of Austin had pushed back, Gov. Greg Abbott’s threat to cut state public safety grants forced the city to make cooperation with federal immigration enforcement mandatory for officers.

The fear of possible deportation by the federal government has strained the city’s ability to reach out to vulnerable communities like Rundberg with large numbers of undocumented residents.
Hedgecock says it was a point of concern that the Austin Police Department actually agreed with.

"Historically, all, or maybe all, of the other systems that exist, they have ways of tying into the computer-aided dispatch centers of law enforcement. We really, really did not want to do that," Hedgecock says. "The great thing was, APD also agreed. They were like, we don't want this integrated into our system right now. They were interested in actually getting increased call volume."

Users of the CivicAlert app will have the option of deciding whether to call APD themselves.

"We worked with APD to get a script. So it's going to be, this is what they're going to ask you, and here's the answer, so they can basically, even if English isn't their first language, it's a very easy call to respond to," Hedgecock says. "This is what you're going to ask, this is what you're going to say if you want to remain anonymous, then you say this at the end of the call. Things that just reduce that barrier to interfacing with law enforcement, to try to get them information more quickly so they can then have a response."

The system, at its core, is built around privacy, giving residents control over how much police presence enters their neighborhood.

"This system was designed with privacy and community at the forefront, so this is not a device that's going to be used for mass surveillance. We're not keeping records of your conversations," La Cour says. "And at the end of the day, you decide whether or not you want to act upon an alert. But I believe that the implementation of the system in the community is going to be a benefit to everyone."

Funding for the project wraps up in August. La Cour says organizers are currently working on applying for an extension that could keep the project funded into the rest of the year.