Durham leaders advocate for gunshot detection technology, higher pay for city employees

Over the next days, Durham leaders will discuss new ways they can make the city a safer place to live and work.

In a two-day virtual budget retreat on Thursday and Friday, the group will consider an investment in new tools aimed at preventing crime.

Mayor Pro Tem Mark Anthony Middleton has submitted several requests for the budget, including asking for the gunshot detection system known as ShotSpotter, which notifies police when a gunfire sound is detected.

Middleton has advocated for this technology for years.

“There is still an offer on the table. Not as generous as the offer that was presented to us over a year ago, but an offer for us on the table to subsidize a pilot program using ShotSpotter technology as a part of a comprehensive, multi-faceted approach to violence,” he added.

Middleton said the multi-faceted approach "will expand violence interrupters, which includes funding through the use of ARPA funds and city funds and initiatives that make gang and gun and violence a less likely option for our people, particularly our young people,” he added.

Middleton is suggesting starting with a pilot program of the gunshot detection system. He said when people hear gunfire they don’t always call police.

“The whole ShotSpotter debate was a shiny object, and it really got a lot of attention, but of course I have called for many things over the years. ShotSpotter was just one of them, and it wasn’t even really about catching bad guys or so much bringing gun violence down. My main thing was that when people don’t call the police when they hear gunfire, often times there are people that have actually been shot and who are lying there in the night bleeding out,” he said.

“I believe, in Durham, when you are in trouble someone should come for you -- and that was my primary motivator for ShotSpotter and anything beyond that for me is bonus,” he added.

Other cities in North Carolina, like Wilmington, are already using ShotSpotter.

Durham is being offered a three-month free trial.

“The hope is that, as our community safety department starts to work -- what’s intended to free up the police, free up capacity -- this will be a tool that will help them, specifically focusing on things that the police should be focused on,” said Middleton.

The city is also looking at investing more into the people who help keep Durham operating daily.

That includes addressing the pay disparities among Durham city workers and restoring pay increases for municipal workers, whose salaries have been frozen since the pandemic hit.

In January, the city increased pay for police officers and firefighters. Middleton believes this is one layer of a large scale approach to making Durham a better place to live and work.

“We’re also going to have to do the work to secure the rest of our municipal workforce who work so hard to really keep the city running to get them back to where they need to be in terms of compensation as well," he added. "Which is critical and top of mind certainly for me, and I believe my colleagues as well."

The virtual budget retreat is from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Thursday and Friday.