The Boston Herald
By O’Ryan Johnson
The Boston Police Department’s Real Time Crime Center kicked in last week to help with the arrest of a teen who blasted a pistol in Dorchester -- luckily hitting no one.
On Wednesday at about 7 p.m. the teen fired, not knowing that the instant the sound reached a nearby sensor, he became the target. The BPD’s shot-spotter, a system of computerized microphones placed throughout the city, picked up the gunshot on Claybourne Street.
The new technology triangulated his position and aimed a camera that zeroed in on the suspect and another man as they fled. By then, the scene was being watched three miles away at police headquarters by a detective, who radioed a description of the suspects to cops in the field. Cruisers on the lookout for the pair saw them on Dakota Street and stopped to question them.
At the same time, a K-9 officer in the area spoke with a resident who said the men had just emerged from a backyard she pointed out. There the dog, which was trained to smell explosives, found a firearm.
“All of these investments that we made in the past - the Real Time Crime Center, the ballistics dogs - they all come together with this case and we are able to take two people who terrorized the neighborhood and get them off the street,” police Commissioner Edward Davis said.
The system is built on the philosophy of community policing that was introduced more than a decade ago and has helped lead to an overall decline in crime over the years, police officials said.
“A lot of times you respond based on a radio description, and you don’t have a very good idea of exactly who is responsible. It’s hard to pick out the right person. With this, you’re getting very precise information of who was involved, and where they were going,” Davis said. “You’re not picking out the wrong person. You can avoid an inappropriate encounter with someone who wasn’t involved.”
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