The system at Newark Memorial High was installed this summer as a test project by ShotSpotter, a company best known for providing police with outdoor gunshot detection services in crime-addled areas of Washington, St. Louis, New York and other cities.
ShotSpotter chief executive Ralph Clark said his company wasn’t looking to expand into the schools market until the Newtown shooting. That’s when the inquiries began, asking whether the ShotSpotter devices could be modified to protect students.
Its first effort came last September, when ShotSpotter’s SecureCampus system went live at the Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia.
On Aug. 27, at nearby Savannah State College, a student was fatally shot during a fight in the student union. For some, this highlighted the need for the technology.
School shootings are a worry everywhere, Clark said. “This is sadly becoming the new normal.”
Another supplier, Shooter Detection Systems, said that in the last year it has placed devices at one school in Methuen, Mass.; four more in California; and another in Virginia Beach. It said it is in talks to install the technology at 36 schools on the West Coast. The company also has done work in factories, a hospital and two airports.