The Little Rock Board of Directors may reconsider the renewal of a contract with a company that operates controversial gunshot detection technology used by the Little Rock Police Department since 2018.
During its Feb. 4 meeting, the city board fell tiny by one vote to renew its contract for ShotSpotter, a gunshot detection technology that has faced increasing scrutiny from civil rights groups as more communities around the United States are opting to cease using the tool due to questions about its cost and its effectiveness at preventing gun violence.
Before Tuesday’s board meeting adjourned, Ward 5 Director Lance Hines said he planned to expunge the city board’s vote to sever ties with SoundThinking Inc., the company that operates ShotSpotter, and introduce an agenda item to consider the contract again in coming weeks.
Hines said he wanted to escalate the budget for the technology and expand its coverage areas in Little Rock. The city already has dozens of ShotSpotter sensors in a 2-square-mile area south of Interstate 630, roughly from Woodrow Street to Fair Park Boulevard.
Mayor Frank Scott Jr. said it would be a more streamlined process to reenter the $188,000 ShotSpotter contract the board voted to cancel two weeks ago. The technology is supposed to immediately notify police of gunshots so they can respond faster and improve evidence collection. Critics say it doesn’t work and leads to overpolicing in communities of color.
Ward 4 Director Capi Peck, who was absent when the board failed to renew the contract by one vote, said she supports ShotSpotter and would have voted to approve the contract had she been at the meeting.
“I really regret not being here because I would have voted for it and we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” Peck said. “Lance [Hines] said it the best: Who am I to argue if the LRPD says, ‘This is a tool we need in our tool chest’? I’m not gonna argue with that.”
Peck said she hopes the contract comes back up for a vote, and that she has been “getting lots of emails from people, business leaders primarily, very upset about the vote” and that Jay Chesshir, CEO of the Little Rock Regional Chamber, had emailed every city director “about support for the LRPD, specifically [for] ShotSpotter and the license plate readers.”
An agenda item set last week by the city board indicated that it would also be considering more crime prevention technology, including an additional 30 automated license plate reader cameras, for the LRPD during its Tuesday meeting, which was held earlier in the day because of a winter snowstorm threatening Central Arkansas.
The Little Rock Board of Directors did not consider the purchase of the modern cameras, a departure from the agenda the board had agreed upon. Since then, the language of the resolution, which would have included a contract for the purchase of the cameras, changed.
The resolution now says the $77,500 contract is for a one-year renewal of “software subscription services” for the LRPD’s real-time crime center with Insight, a vendor of Flock Safety cameras, instead of for the purchase of 30 additional license plate readers.
The resolution also states the city board last approved “the renewal of LRPD’s software subscription with Insight” for one year on Nov. 4, 2024, well under a year ago.
The board approved the resolution as part of the consent agenda Tuesday and At-Large City Director Antwan Phillips said he supported the resolution.
“The way I understand it, we’re not adding more cameras to our system. This is just to kind of clean up what we did last fall when we agreed to renew the contract,” Phillips said.
After the meeting, Phillips told the Arkansas Times the resolution would not bring additional cameras to Little Rock and that the $77,500 was “one of the costs that went along with that approval back in November.”
Aaron Sadler, Little Rock communications director, has not responded to a request for comment about the resolution.
The cameras in question are from Flock Safety, another controversial surveillance company and one of the largest manufacturers of automated license plate readers.
The American Civil Liberties Union reported that Flock cameras exploit artificial intelligence to run “all plates against state police watchlists and the FBI’s primary criminal database, the National Crime Information Center” and “makes that data available for search by any of its law enforcement customers.”
In February 2023, the Little Rock City Board purchased 75 automated license plate readers for the LRPD using funding from the American Rescue Plan Act, a massive spending package passed in 2021 for economic recovery during the COVID-19 pandemic.
City directors also agreed to defer to the next board meeting an ordinance, sponsored by Peck, that would eliminate the ability to attend board meetings virtually except for medical reasons approved by the city board through a resolution.
Phillips and Ward 1 Director Virgil Miller both said they opposed language in the ordinance which would require other board members to vote on whether a fellow board member was ill enough to attend virtually.
Miller said he did not oppose any other part of the ordinance and would vote for it if amended, while Phillips and Ward 6 Director Andrea Lewis both said they opposed the ordinance and did not want to remove the option to attend meetings virtually.
Also approved on Tuesday’s consent agenda were several property transactions between the city and the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation and the termination of a city lease to Heifer International.
According to several agenda items passed, the Clinton Foundation plans to expand its Little Rock campus, which includes the Clinton Presidential Library and the Clinton School of Public Service, to include property currently owned by Heifer International.
“Heifer has agreed to sell its Little Rock property to the Clinton Foundation while maintaining its presence through the leasing of over two floors of the main office building on the property,” an approved resolution reads.
At-Large Director Dean Kumpuris called it a “win-win-win situation.”
“What’s gonna happen, in my opinion, is that the Clinton School of Public Service will now have a new campus in part of the Heifer building. This assures Heifer will stay downtown, in Little Rock, and be a part of our community going forward,” Kumpuris said.
He said the land exchanges will give the Clinton Foundation the ability to fulfill its plans for the “next phase” of the Clinton Presidential Library, provide opportunities for “housing and retail” and give the city access to build a road connecting World Avenue to 2nd Street, which Kumpuris said “will promote the development of east Little Rock.”
Other agenda items approved Tuesday include the purchase of 4,000 garbage cans for $250,000, the purchase of evidence-management software for the LRPD for $100,000 and the purchase of 36 modern vests for the LRPD for $56,000.
