ShotSpotter plays a lot of games with the numbers.

Notably with their accuracy.

Say shot spotter goes off and sends the cops out. They find no evidence of a shooting. No injuries, no property damage, no shell casings. No problem at all.

Would you call that a “false positive”?

ShotSpotter doesn’t. They only count a false positive if the cops can definitively say what the noise was, fireworks, backfire, transformer explosion, etc.

If they can’t determine a cause, other than “well, it wasn’t gunfire…” ShotSpotter doesn’t count it as a false reading.