Denver committee approves smaller SoundThinking gunshot-detection contract

Denver’s City Council Health and Safety Committee voted 6-0 Wednesday to reduce the city’s SoundThinking gunshot-detection contract by $147,421 after police identified coverage zones that generated the fewest alerts during a 12-month review. Councilmember Paul Kashmann was absent, according to the committee minutes.

The amendment reduces the contract from roughly $4.5 million to $4,352,579 and coverage from 16.1 square miles to 13.95 square miles. The contract term remains unchanged and runs through Dec. 31, 2026.

The Denver Police Department’s contract-amendment presentation describes the change as a realignment based on operational priorities, demonstrated use patterns and stewardship of public-safety resources. Denver has not identified the neighborhoods removed from coverage in the materials reviewed.

The annual cost is expected to fall from $853,677 to $706,255, an 18% reduction, according to the committee agenda.

The change comes amid debate over what the system detects and how police respond. During the committee discussion, police officials said vendor performance reviews showed a success rate above 90%. They also said 4% to 5% of incidents were either misidentified as gunfire or located outside the expected radius. Officials did not define those figures as a separately measured false-positive rate or specify the reporting period.

Councilmember Kevin Flynn said a prior presentation showed that 13% of alerts were associated with a 911 call. The Sept. 2 committee video did not provide a denominator or date range for that figure. Police said officers generally do not respond to alerts involving fewer than three shots unless an alert is tied to a 911 call or occurs in a persistently violent hotspot, a policy officials said is intended to preserve patrol capacity.

Police officials said alerts can still produce investigative evidence when officers do not find a shooter, including shell casings and information about shooting patterns. The shooter is often gone by the time officers arrive, they said.

The records reviewed for the amendment do not provide totals for alerts, verified shootings or police responses during the current five-year contract term. A CBS Colorado report, citing a Denver Police Department release, reported 25,217 alerts from 2020 through June 2026, 655 arrests and the recovery of 721 firearms. The release also said officers found shell casings in connection with 6,672 alerts. Those figures begin before the current contract and end before its scheduled expiration; they do not establish the number of verified shootings or police responses during the term.

The amendment does not announce a replacement system or a new contract after 2026.