Coming up. Atlanta police are staying very tight-lipped about this trial program, and I would never have known that this trial wasn't even underway had it not been for ShotSpotter telling me.

For Vault Studios, I'm Reid Redmond. You're listening to The Daily Crime.

A few weeks back, we talked to Abby Alford with CBS 8 in San Diego about the city's use

of a police tool called Shotspotter that some see as controversial.

We have surveillance watchdogs out there that say that this needs to be unplugged right now. There's no need

for it. And if there is a need for it, and if we are going to have it, we need to have a community

voice at the table. We need to have oversight. We need to know exactly what is this data. Are

these false alerts? What is it being used for? So they want more transparency like many do

when we know that there are surveillance tools out there.

During the conversation, we mentioned that many cities throughout the United States

have used or are using this tool.

That list of cities includes Atlanta.

When we reached out to APD, the department declined a request for an interview,

but said ShotSpotter has made some enhancements to their product and is offering a no-cost pilot.

Do you have any information from police about this latest trial period with ShotSpotter?

I've literally heard nothing about it other than APD is doing it.

Here to tell us more is Kristen Crowley, an investigative reporter with WXIA 11 Alive in Atlanta.

Kristen, first off, for anyone who's new to this conversation, what is ShotSp spotter and what is it supposed to do?

Sure. So shot spotter is this technology that is supposed to be a gunshot detection system.

The idea behind it is that when somebody fires a gun, it alerts this system through these sensors that can then alert police before anybody even needs to call 911.

And so the thought being is if people are afraid to call 911, if people hear the gunshots and they don't know where they came from, this system can direct police directly to the area

that this happened.

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