PAC Recommends Ditching Shotspotter/Grim Drill Down on Budget Woes at Finance Mtg/Newsom's Flock Claim Repackages Old, Questionable Info

Privacy Advisory Commission Recommends Discontinuing “Shotspotter” to Council

In an unexpected twist at Thursday’s Privacy Advisory Commission [PAC] meeting, Commissioners passed a motion recommending that the City Council sunset its Gunshot Detection Technology [GDT] and use the estimated $1.8 MM* savings to bolster other policing measures. The PAC’s recommendation will now accompany the OPD’s Shotspotter** annual report when it is presumably introduced to Council in coming weeks. The motion, which had not been previously included in the agenda packet accompanying the OPD's Shotspotter annual report, was introduced on the floor by the PAC’s long-time Chair, Brian Hofer. The move follows the high-profile termination of Shotspotter in Chicago by Mayor Brandon Johnson in February—Johnson had campaigned on ending its use after it played a role in the police shooting death of teen Adam Toledo in 2021.

PAC Recommendation Non-Binding, but Influential

The OPD’s annual reports on its use of surveillance technologies are mandated by Oakland’s 2018 Surveillance Technology Ordinance, which requires annual reports from City agencies using surveillance technology. The reports must first come before the PAC for review before they are forwarded to the Council. The PAC may add an official recommendation from the body about whether to continue using the technology, discontinue or modify the use or policies around the technology. The PAC determines whether the technology's benefits to the community outweigh the costs; that the program safeguards civil rights and liberties; and that no alternative with a lesser economic cost or impact on civil rights and liberties would be as effective. The PAC then makes a recommendation on the technology and program, but the ultimate decision on all these criteria belongs to the Council. The Council has the ultimate authority in approving contracts and policy proposals.

But the PAC’s recommendation has significant weight on the Council and in the past has led to publicized showdowns on other technologies, including the OPD’s vehicle-mounted automated license plate reader [ALPR] system. For years, the PAC advised Council to retire the system due to both its inefficacy and improper stewardship by OPD, but the findings were politicized and opposed by Council members Treva Reid, Loren Taylor and Noel Gallo in 2022. Just months later, in early 2023, the OPD all but admitted its car-mounted system was ineffective and quietly retired it despite having just obtained approval of a use policy brokered by CM Sheng Thao and supported by OPD’s Chief at the time, Leronne Armstrong.

Surveillance Ordinance Directs PAC to Judge Relative Value of Technologies

In his presentation, and in a policy document given to other Commissioners, Hofer argued that the PAC has a duty to recommend alternate technologies or programs if a technology’s benefits aren’t as effective as other options. Hofer clarified early into his argument that the issues were not of privacy, as the number of actual voice recordings of residents are negligible. Rather, Hofer argued that the costs to the community were in the form of delayed response times, ineffective use of budgeted funds and resources that could be spent elsewhere. Hofer also noted that all these considerations have come to an inflection point this year as the City finds itself struggling with back to back budget deficits and must make difficult budgeting decisions.

“Our standard is not just that benefits outweigh the costs, it’s ‘no alternative with lesser economic costs or impact on civil rights would be as effective. The foundation of [the Surveillance ordinance] is…what is the purpose for using this particular tool. In the old days, it was ‘ShotSpotter is going to reduce gun violence’. And that's just not happening anywhere,” Hofer said. "If gathering [shell] casings doesn't lead to anything, is gathering casings a benefit? If gathering guns doesn't decrease gun violence or put people in jail, is just the gathering of guns that are never going to get traced to anybody, a public benefit?"

Hofer’s policy document notes “effective alternatives with a lesser economic cost or impact on civil rights or civil liberties” exist, such as the case-clearing capabilities of the OPD’s crime lab, and recommends that it receive the approximate $1.8 MM* in funding recouped from a potential termination of the Shotspotter system.

Data Doesn’t Support Arguments for Shotspotter’s Efficacy

Hofer’s document noted failings in every effective area of Shotspotter’s crime fighting function, much of it in data from the OPD’s own annual reports, which the data suggest mirror the experience of other jurisdictions using GDT. The document notes that alerts lead to no actionable response at an average rate of about 77% over the past four years, according to OPD’s own records. In 2023, for example, only 22% of alerts led to the creation of an incident report. Hofer called the remaining 78% alerts responded to by OPD in 2023 “wild goose chases”. Of the firearm related incident reports written by OPD in 2023, 73% were for negligent discharge, not violent crimes.

The number of arrests directly due to a Shotspotter alert has varied over the past four years, but has never surpassed 8, according to the OPD’s own data. In 2023 there were only 4 arrests directly attributable to Shotspotter. Ironically, the policy document shows that after Council voted for a geographic expansion of the system in 2021 [“Phase 4” implementation], Shotspotter’s false positive response increased, while direct arrests from Shotspotter alerts decreased, according to the OPD’s data.

The policy document notes other Shotspotter failures that appear universal in jurisdictions using the GDT system over years. Recovery of guns and shell casings at Shotspotter activation sites rarely lead to arrests or convictions and have no correlation to gun violence rates. The document also argues that the most compelling rationale for continuing to use Shotspotter—its purported value in providing immediate life-saving aid for gunshot victims—is based on data that is poorly tracked and inconclusive.

In short, the document argues, Shotspotter fails at its primary functions—evidence collection, life-saving, crime prevention—while promoting over-policing on minor issues outside the scope of Shotspotter’s focus. The last is especially relevant in the experience of Chicago’s decision to ditch the system. A heightened sense of alarm by police responding to a Shotspotter call likely led to the death of Adam Toledo, a child who triggered an activation by firing a gun. Subsequent investigation revealed that Toledo was unarmed when he was shot to death by the police officer who responded to the alert.

OPD Rep Claims Multiplier Effect Not Quantifiable by Data

Lt Fred Shavies, the OPD's representative at the meeting, pushed back against the assertions in the policy document. But Shavies nonetheless acknowledged the findings in his own report and struggled to rebut the portrayal of the system. In the defense of the technology, Shavies claimed that Shotspotter works in a multiplier effect with OPD’s gestalt of crime-fighting practices, programs and technologies and can’t be judged on its own data alone.

“Four people were arrested when officers responded immediately and arrested somebody off of an alert,” Shavies said, noting the low number of arrests associated directly with Shotspotter. But Shavies argued that Shotspotter could not be evaluated in isolation. “A number of people were arrested throughout the city for shooting incidents that were assisted by Shotspotter...looking at it in totality of ShotSpotter as a tool or a portion of the investigation versus the main cause of the arrest…”, Shavies added. Shavies also argued anecdotally for the life-saving capacity of Shotspotter throughout the discussion.

No Data for Life-Saving Capacity

Shavies most compelling arguments based on anecdotal claims are often reflected in the City and OPD’s arguments for preserving Shotspotter. In presentations for Shotspotter over the years, the City and OPD have argued that the technology allows direct response with geographic certainty to the site of a shooting, often allowing police to arrive before any first responders and often even if no other person knew about the shooting—leading to saving lives and collecting important evidence. The more visceral life-saving argument shores up the weaker arguments on efficacy where data shows little, if any, positive benefit from the alerts. OPD’s annual report describes Shotspotter activations leading to 170 incidents in the aftermath of an assault with a firearm and suggests that in some number of these, OPD’s coordination of medical response was critical.

“OPD personnel believe that several of these victims survived the shootings specifically because of the quick response and subsequent medical attention.”

But that anecdote is the only basis for the claim in the OPD’s report.

Lack of Data on Efficacy Moves Commissioners

Increasingly through the discussion, the fact that the direct data shows little benefit and that OPD’s claim of a more holistic effect lack any supporting data played a major role in cementing positions on Hofer’s proposal.

Commissioner Jessica Leavitt noted the lack of any real data-driven argument in her comments.

“I mean, I think that we all agree if [Shotspotter] did the things that we would like it to do, it seems worth keeping, but I don't think we have a reason to believe that it does. [The data is] very general, with respect to what happens when you come across a victim of a shooting…about how many casings OPD picked up that then tied into an active investigation. We just don't have that data. I would imagine it's out there but we don't have it.”

Commissioner Reem Suleiman also noted the dearth of real data to gauge the impact on OPD’s response time, but she reminded Shavies that OPD in a previous presentation claimed that the department turns off Shotspotter during firework season due to the overwhelming number of false positives.

Of the Commissioners, only Henry Gage mounted a significant defense of Shotspotter, arguing that Shotspotter seemed to fulfill its purpose in general.

“If you look at the proposed purpose of this particular technology it was, as written, situational awareness, medical response, evidence collection. That’s what’s in the purpose and it seems to be doing that, so it’s difficult to say that it’s not being effective when it’s meeting its stated purpose.”

Gage also agreed that data for Shotspotter's efficacy was lacking, but that the fact made him less willing to move against Shotspotter. Gage said he didn’t have strong enough data to disprove Shavies contention about the multiplier effects and agreed the life-saving argument is compelling.

“A lot of [the data is] very general, with respect to what happens when you come across a victim of a shooting. And then along similar lines, we don't have specifics here about how many casings OPD picked up that then tied into an active investigation and allowed them to pursue a new lead or pick up a suspect or connect a series of shootings. We don't have that data. I would imagine it's out there but we don't have it and it makes it difficult to assess efficacy for either of the currently proposed efficacy tracks, whether it's as a death mitigation tool, for lack of a better word, or as a evidence collection tool. Maybe it's working, but it's not here. And we're kind of relying on anecdotes and personal experiences, and maybe some professional expertise to kind of fill in the gaps,” Gage said.

OPD Officials Have Also Supported Sunsetting Shotspotter in the Past

An elephant in the room for the discussion was OPD’s past frustration, expressed implicitly and explicitly over the years, with GDT technology. In previous years, OPD officials have publicly argued that Shotspotter is a drain on police response and resources. Former Police Chief Sean Whent opposed the continuation of Shotspotter and argued for it to be removed from the police budget in 2014—but council members led by then D6-representative Desley Brooks opposed the idea and added it into Council’s amendment of the Mayor’s budget.

In 2020, Capt. Eric Lewis told the Public Safety Committee at that time who were considering a geographic expansion of Shotspotter that he was ambivalent about an expansion. Lewis also stated that many of the Shotspotter firearm recoveries are from gun owners doing “target practice in their backyards” and not involved in violent criminal activity.

“I’ll say this with all transparency, the amount of Shotspotter activation we see now is virtually impossible to keep up with…it’s a blessing and a curse with Shotspotter. Increasing into some of the areas where Shotspotter is not covered now will increase the amount of need for police response,” Lewis cautioned CMs.

During 2019-21 budget deliberations in 2019, then-D3 CM Lynnette Gibson-McElhaney argued unsuccessfully for a freeze of Shotspotter but did manage to head off a proposed expansion of the program. McElhaney had long been a champion of OPD on Council and received significant funding from the Oakland Police Officers Association in the next election cycle. Nevertheless, the Council voted to expand into a “Phase 4” coverage area in central Oakland in 2021 at an increase of several hundred thousand dollars to the then-existing contract.

Majority Vote for Sunsetting Recommendation, Rec Now Moves to Council

Hofer modified the motion, deleting language that specifically targeted any savings from the elimination of Shotspotter to Oakland’s crime lab—several Commissioners noted that this was a specific recommendation outside the data analyzed. The final motion recommended only that the funds be spent on another public safety alternative.

The PAC recommends that the City Council not renew or extend the contract with Shotspotter (now Sound Thinking) which expires June 30, 2024, and that the approximately $1.8 million+ in future savings (if a similar 2 year contract were to be renewed) be directed toward a more effective and proven alternative with less impact to civil liberties that will improve public safety.

The PAC’s final vote was 5 in favor of the recommendation; two against and one abstention. The annual report and the accompanying recommendation have not yet been scheduled to Council. Oakland's current contract with Shotspotter ends on June 30, 2024. Mayor Sheng Thao, and Public Safety Committee Chair Rebecca Kaplan were both contacted for this article, but had not responded by press time.

*In the annual report, OPD contends Oakland’s Shotspotter cost is $1.6 MM per two year budget cycle.

**Shotspotter rechristened itself SoundThinking, likely to remove the stigma after Chicago’s current mayor won his seat on a campaign vowing to remove their GDT. It’s referred to as Shotspotter here throughout by this publication, however, to avoid misleading readers about the technology involved, which has become synonymous with the name over a period of decades.

Grim Forecast for Current/Next FY Budget in Finance Committee Discussion

At a Finance Committee meeting on March 26, Finance Director Erin Roseman, Budget Director Bradley Johnson and Revenue Director Sherry Jackson drilled down on budget woes in the Second Quarter Revenue and Expenditure report for the City's General Purpose Fund [GPF]. The GPF is the pool of dollars created by tax and other revenues that pay for services, labor and other costs. It's distinct from other pools of funds like the funds from Measure Q and Measure Z.

Several months ago, a first quarter report projected a worrisome incipient deficit in the GPF, just three months into the new fiscal year. The Finance Department now says that deficit has only widened, with revenues projected to end $166 MM under projections, mostly driven by lower than assumed revenues in Real Estate Transfer Tax [RETT] and Business License Tax [BLT]. The deficit is made worse by $8 MM in overspending, due largely to a gigantic $25.6 MM OPD overage, mostly in overtime. The overspending was blunted by the reality that many other major departments under-spent their budgets due to vacancies and frozen positions.

Real Estate Transfer Tax Drop Mirrors Great Recession Impact

Jackson noted that the $57 MM projected shortfall in the RETT, the tax paid whenever property changes hands, mirrors RETT declines during the great recession in the last half of the 2010s. Jackson also noted that the decline has little to do with Oakland policies or local economic factors, and is a byproduct of economic trends nationwide.

“After 2006, going down to 2008, you'll notice that those revenues from real estate transfer tax declined greatly. The same pattern is visible. If you look at the chart, in 2021, you'll see that was our peak or revenues. Again, a large part of this is due to things beyond the city's control. We have inflation, and a number of other things that's impacting the transfer of real properties within the city. So through Q2, only 11 properties had sold that had a value over $5 MM, comparing this to last fiscal year, at the same time, there were 25 properties [sold],” Jackson told the Committee. Jackson predicts an end of year gap of 51.8% in RETT over the original projection.

Johnson later noted during his presentation that a similar decline in RETT revenue is being observed in San Francisco, and will likely soon be experienced in other jurisdictions in the Bay Area.

BLT Lower Than Forecast, But $17MM Higher Than it Would Have Been Without Measure T

In one of the few positive pieces of news, Jackson noted an actual increase in BLT revenue over the past several years, despite the fact that BLT is currently projected to end the year at a lower sum than what was forecast. The BLT, despite the shortfall, is projected to perform at the same level it did last year–and at much higher levels than it did in the previous years due to the passage of the progressive business tax ballot measure. Jackson specifically noted that as a result of Measure T, Business Tax is bringing additional revenue that it would have not otherwise—perhaps to counter current right wing propaganda attempting to project a false doom loop Oakland narrative.

“We do want to note that measure T was a success and had it not been for the passage of measure T if you look at the chart…our revenues would have only been $98 million based on the trend. But because of the passage of measure T, we're looking at collecting an additional 17.8 4 million,” Jackson said.

The BLT revenue will likely come in about the same as last year’s, about $115 MM.

Expenditures Driven to Overage by OPD

On the expenditure side, the City would have underspent by about $18 MM owing to city-wide vacancies in all of its departments—if it hadn’t been for one department that massively overspent by $25.6 MM, the OPD. Most of OPD overspending is in non-reimbursable overtime, as the police staffing has hovered under the budgeted sworn staffing for much of the year. The 8% OPD overspending is projected to be blunted by the reality that most departments will underspend by the end of the year, with the exclusion of OPD. As Budget Director Johnson noted, OPD is “the only department expected to overspend”.

$175 MM Deficit Predicted as Baseline for Mid-Cycle Budgeting

The two numbers together mean the City is looking at a $177 MM budget shortfall by the end of the fiscal year—that means the City budgeted its revenues at a higher rate and its expenditures at a lower rate than are currently predicted to come to pass. But Johnson also noted that this number is not the total projected operational fund balance. Oakland began the year with $93 MM funds carried over from the ARPA-bolstered previous budget year. After setting aside the City’s mandated fiscal requirements, that leaves the City with a $117 MM deficit heading into the mid-cycle budget process in May and June, also expected to begin with a structural deficit.

The City has other funds, mostly as a result of special taxes, however, that may be used in the upcoming budget cycle, including Measure Q, BB and others, that are projected to end the year with budget surpluses totaling about $100 MM. Those funds come with restrictions in their use—more than half the amount is in the Development Services Fund, which can only be used for Planning Department related costs. In general as well, the funds are meant to provide additional services and cover additional costs from the GPF, not allow the City to cut costs from the GPF and pay for them with the funds. The funds will require a special vote to eliminate “maintenance of effort” levels, which are a requirement of dedicated tax funds. The Council took such a vote in the last budget to use more of the funds than would have normally been possible to fill in the gaps in the budget as they were foreseen at that time. These funds aren't included in the [GPF] math.

Regardless, with the current operating deficit, the mid-cycle budget will begin with a $175 MM deficit before Council members even begin to create their spreadsheets, according to Roseman. Roseman recommended hiring freezes and negotiated concessions from labor, as well as a search for new sources of revenue. As is usual in a prolonged shortfall, department heads are being required to make lists of areas they can produce budget savings in. Roseman also noted that services expanded during Covid with Federal offsets would likely have to be curtailed

“And some of those things, whether they may still be right for our public and the right thing to do, we're supporting now that the federal government resources have dried up. And so where we have to make a hard decision about is, is it something that we're going to continue doing? Or are we going to divest from that additional expanded social service that was needed during COVID-19?” Roseman said.

Newsom’s Announcement on Flock ALPR Repackages Stale and Questionable Info as Fresh News

Several weeks ago, this publication reported that the City had abandoned its own Council-authorized Flock camera project. The City’s plan to partner with Flock on the placement of license capturing cameras along City streets should have begun in December. If things had gone according to plan, 300 Flock cameras would have already been mounted on Oakland city streets by February. It's clear that the City believed, or at least wanted the public to believe, that the process was about to begin in December, and still possible in January, when this publication received the timeline from an official spokesperson for the city. But somewhere along the way things changed–none of the placements occurred and the contract with Flock was never executed.

One key element of the plan relied on a $1.2 MM loan from the state specifically for the project. But it's more likely than not that the loan never came. A public records request by this publication for evidence that the loan was received by the City of Oakland has gone unanswered at press time.

The cameras will now be under the control of the CHP, with its own use policy, not the one co-authored by the Privacy Advisory Commission [PAC], and passed by Council. Though the CHP's use policy hasn’t been published, state rules tend to be stricter than local ones on the use of ALPR. The CHP has suggested their retention period for license plate data will be slightly shorter, 28 days instead of the 30 the PAC and OPD had authored. But with CHP in charge, that also means that there will be no local process of accountability for the agency, a notoriously untransparent organization. The CHP’s retention period is currently 60 days for its own ALPR, so the ostensible 28 day period would be at its own discretion, with no guarantees. At this point, it doesn’t seem like CHP will be required to present annual reports on usage to the PAC, either. With the new paradigm in place, Oakland would become the only local jurisdiction with an internal Flock system it does not have direct control over—Emeryville, Piedmont, San Leandro, and Berkeley all run their own Flock systems, as do other jurisdictions like San Jose.

This was all known weeks ago. Regardless, Governor Gavin Newsom recently issued a press release on March 29th, accompanied by a video of the Governor standing on a corner of Hegenberger–the industrial corridor to the airport made famous by corporate media belief in the sanctity of In n Out Burgers–reiterating the information. Newsom's new number now conflates the freeway cameras with the Oakland street surface cameras, and appears to decrease the number in Oakland by 10, from 300 to 290. The press release states that the state intends to install 190 additional cameras on "Bay Area freeways"–an obviously vast geographic area.

But whether the new Flock system will ever be installed in Oakland’s city limits is still an open question. The City has not answered inquiries about the current timeline. The City has been without an ALPR system for over a year, during which time auto burglaries increased, and then subsequently decreased, with no apparent connection to the technology, according to Oakland police statistics. Murders and other gun violence have decreased over the past calendar quarter compared to the same time last year, without the benefit of the purported downstream effect from ALPR.