Police rely too much on technology

I am a student from Fresno State, and I read Tim Sheehan’s Feb. 15 article about the city of Fresno extending its gunfire detection system.

The expansion will extend the system 14.26 miles to cover more schools. That is good for our city, but it’s not enough. The police department should not just let technology do all the extra work that police should do. This gunfire detection was only said to cover only 70 percent of shots-fired incidents. The other 30 percent was not declared to be covered by police.

That means that the police aren’t active enough to be able to make that statement. Even if the system detects a shooting, it takes an average of eight minutes for police to get there. By expanding the system, it’s said that it will only take four minutes.

Can they show us the proof? Who ran the test? How can they make sure by adding more coverage it’s going to make the police arrive at the life-threatening emergency situation faster?

They never made us aware that they’ll assign officers certain areas to be aware of any suspicious activity to increase our safety. They are relying too much on technology.

This story was originally published February 18, 2018 at 5:02 PM with the headline "Police rely too much on technology."