Fresno's mayor planning to add more Shot Spotter technology in the city

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- Hours following last Tuesday's deadly shooting spree Fresno's Police Chief Jerry Dyer played the Shot Spotter sound that alerted his officers of what was going on. Within two minutes, police were feet away from the gunman.

"The recent tragedy we had last week clearly illustrated the value of Shot Spotter. In this case I believe it may have saved lives," said Lee Brand, Fresno Mayor.

Brand said because of that, he wants to add $150,000 to the city's budget for three more square miles of the gunshot detection system.

"You can't have a cop on every corner, you've got to use technology and this is a great technology and it's proven itself."

Brand is also hoping Fresno County and the Fresno Unified School District will assist with funding.

However, the district, which currently pays for half of the city's Shot Spotters, said a conversation with the city about financing more systems has not taken place.

"It's not anything that is being adjudicated or discussed on behalf of the board but that could change if that's the board prevue to do that, but at current we are not adjudicating whether or not we want to expand what we existingly fund for Shot Spotter," said Bob Nelson, FUSD Interim Superintendent.

Dyer told us he would ideally like a total of 12 square miles of coverage from the technology, but he adds anything would help with increasing public safety in places where there is a propensity of gun violence.

"We have put together a map that would clearly define what the next two areas would be, 3 miles, each based on where we know gunshots are occurring and taking in neighborhood and schools and that's what we are doing."

The Mayor said money for the technology will come out of the general fund and his goal is to present the plan for it to the council around May 25th.