His three daily calls to her had become a lifeline, but when they dwindled to only a few a week, the 65-year-old felt he couldn’t go on. He made plans to take his life with a stockpiled stash of pills.
Williams was arrested last August, accused of murdering a young man from the neighborhood who asked him for a ride during a night of unrest over police brutality. The key evidence came from video of a car driving through an intersection, and a loud bang picked up by acoustic sensors. Prosecutors said audio technology powered by a secret algorithm indicated Williams shot and killed the man inside his car.
“I kept trying to figure out, how can they get away with using the technology like that against me?” said Williams. “That’s not fair.”
Williams was jailed for nearly a year before prosecutors, citing insufficient evidence, asked a judge to dismiss the case.
Williams’ experience highlights the real-world impacts of society’s growing reliance on algorithms to help make consequential decisions about public life. This is especially apparent in law enforcement, which has turned to technology like acoustic gunshot detection. One such firm,
But an
AP’s investigation found the system can miss live gunfire right under its microphones, or misclassify sounds of fireworks or cars backfiring as gunshots.
The company identifies possible gunshots with the acoustic sensors. Then
Amid a nationwide debate over racial bias in policing, civil rights advocates say the criminal justice system shouldn’t outsource some of society’s weightiest decisions to computer code.
“The point is anything that ultimately gets produced as a gunshot has to have eyes and ears on it,” said Clark. “Human eyes and ears, ok?”
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This story, supported by the
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Police chiefs call
But academic researchers who reviewed 68 large, metropolitan counties from 1999 to 2016 found that the technology didn’t reduce gun violence or increase community safety.
One Sunday evening in
“I was hollering to my passenger ‘Are you ok?’” said Williams. “He didn’t respond.”
He sped to the emergency room. Herring died a few days later.
Three months later, police showed up, and after an interrogation they charged Williams with first-degree murder.
“When he told me that, it was just like something in me had just died,” said Williams.
On the night of the shooting, ShotSpotters sensors identified a loud noise the system initially assigned to
Prosecutors also leaned on a surveillance video showing that Williams’ car ran a red light, as did another car that appeared to have its windows up, ruling out that the shot came from the other car’s passenger window, they said.
As ShotSpotter’s gunshot detection systems expand around the country, so has its use as courtroom evidence — including 91 cases in the past 4 years.
“Our data compiled with our expert analysis help prosecutors make convictions,” said a recent
But as cases increase, defense attorneys are growing more skeptical.
During 2016 testimony in a
In the Williams case, evidence in pre-trial hearings shows
Later, a
Last month a judge dismissed the case against Williams.
Williams’ attorney
Williams remains shaken. When he walks through the neighborhood, he scans for the acoustic sensors that almost sent him to prison for life.
“The only places these devices are installed are in poor Black communities, nowhere else,” he said. “How many of us will end up in this same situation?"
Mendoza reported from
Contact AP’s global investigative team at Investigative@ap.org
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