(NECN: Alysha Palumbo - Boston) - An exchange of gunfire on the streets of Boston.
Police are on the scene within a matter of minutes, but their investigation began before they even arrived...thanks to this ShotSpotter detection system and these street cameras, monitored here in the Boston Police Real-Time Crime Center.
Jennifer Gillis, an intelligence analyst in Boston Police Real Time Crime Center said, "ShotSpotter and the camera system talk to each other, so if there's a shots fired incident, the closest camera will turn towards that incident for about a minute to give us a chance of seeing anybody going to or from the incident."
In that shooting, the ShotSpotter technology was their ears, the surveillance cameras were their eyes, and now they have the technology at their fingertips to track down anyone in the area who's wearing a GPS monitoring bracelet.
Boston Police Superintendent Paul Fitzgerald said, "What that does is it allows us to identify a possible victim, a possible suspect, a possible witness."
Superintendent Fitzgerald said the department got the ability to access the GPS data just last week, and with more than 1800 people on probation or parole in the city, that can help police zero in on a potential suspect or rule out someone with a record.
"We've had shooting cases, serious shooting cases in which names surfaced and the GPS data showed that they weren't at that scene and we move on," said Supt. Fitzgerald, "we've had very serious shooting cases where GPS data shows that individuals were at the scene and in some cases have been arrested for those shootings."
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"There can be good things about the use of these technologies but there are also really serious pitfalls," said Matthew Segal, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts.
Segal says the ACLU's concerns are what police might use this technology for in the future, especially since most people already have a GPS tracker on them in the form of their cell phone.
"This type of technology isn't going to be limited, can't be limited to just probationers and parolees," said Segal.
Police say the department is just trying use all the tools available to solve crimes.
Supt. Fitzgerald said, "We're using technology to help us do our job better."
