Gunshot Tracker Tests Scare Asian Residents

By Summer Chiang, New America Media

SAN FRANCISCO - Chinese community leaders say a system to track gunshots in Visitacion Valley has frightened Chinese-American families in the area.

The San Francisco Police Department installed a gunshot monitoring system, known as "ShotSpotter," in three different locations in and around the city’s Visitacion Valley neighborhood, at the intersections of Burr and Argonaut avenues, Campbell Avenue and Rutland Street, and Mansell and Brussels streets. The system detects the sound of gunshots and alerts authorities immediately as to where the bullets were fired.

The police recently conducted tests of the system by firing guns at night to make sure the trackers were working. Ingleside Police Station Captain Louis A. Cassanego said the police had informed residents that they were testing the system.

But the Sing Tao Daily reports that some Chinese families in the neighborhood didn’t get the message.

Community leader Marlene Tran, who recently ran for supervisor of District 10, said she was worried there wasn’t enough Chinese-language outreach. Chinese residents who don’t understand English, she said, may not have understood that the shots were police-sanctioned tests, and may have been frightened when they heard gunshots at night.