Philly Council members inspect Camden's gunfire-detection system

A MAN STOOD on Mount Ephraim Avenue in Camden clutching an umbrella, unaware that several Philadelphia City Council members were watching him from another part of the city in a dark room full of computer monitors.

Council President Darrell Clarke had led the journey over the Ben Franklin Bridge to Camden yesterday morning to check the Camden County Police Department's nerve center, its Real-Time Tactical Operations and Information Center, where a network of cameras and hidden microphones is monitored like something out of a spy thriller.

Clarke was particularly interested in Camden's ShotSpotter technology, which picks up gunshots and relays possible locations back to the department using microphones hidden in the city's most troubled neighborhoods.

"So, if a gunshot happens? Boom! It finds the location?" Clarke asked Camden County Assistant Police Chief Orlando Cuevas.

Clarke said he was interested in implementing ShotSpotter or similar gunshot-detecting technology in Philadelphia, particularly in the troubled 22nd District in North Philly.

"We're ready to get the checks out," Clarke said.

"That was Council president who said that, not me," Councilman Ed Neilson said with a laugh. "I just want to clarify that."

The technology inside the information center cost about $4.5 million, a county spokesman said. According to statistics released by ShotSpotter earlier this month, Camden had a 48 percent drop in shots fired from 2013 to 2014.

Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey did not attend the meeting but said later that Philadelphia is already implementing a gunshot-detection system in the city.

"It's the same thing," Ramsey said yesterday afternoon. "It's being installed. We had it in D.C. It's very effective."

Clarke's spokeswoman, Jane Roh, said the Philadelphia Police Department has not been responsive to Council's request for information about its gunshot-detection system.

Cuevas said Camden County also would be implementing a "virtual trip wire" that would alert the information center when someone entered a public park at night.

The electric eyes and ears have pushed drug dealers indoors, Cuevas acknowledged, but it's also changed the daily lives of law-abiding residents.

"They've adjusted," Cuevas said. "When the bad guys retreat into a house, the good people start to come out of their houses again."