Privacy

Roanoke Removes Gunshot Detectors Months After Approving Them

Limited evidence of effectiveness combined with privacy concerns raises questions about the sensors.

J.D. Tuccille | 8.5.2026 7:00 AM

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(Illustration: Midjourney Photo: Paul Weaver/Sipa USA/Newscom)

Last week, the city of Roanoke, Virginia, ended its brief and fumbled experiment with Flock Safety's Raven acoustic gunshot detectors (AGD) after 41 of the 75 approved devices had been installed—30 of them in the wrong locations. Roanoke isn't alone. Numerous other cities have canceled contracts with Flock or with SoundThinking Inc, a competing provider of ShotSpotter, a similar technology, over cost, effectiveness, and privacy concerns related to scattering microphones across a city.

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Botched Installation Joins Privacy Concerns Over Microphones in Public Places

According to The Roanoke Star's Stephanie Harper, "an internal review traced the misplacements to data-entry errors: sensor addresses were mistyped, including 'Orange Ave.' rendered as 'Grange Ave.' more than once, and installation crews worked from a location list that council had never approved. The city first reported 16 misplaced sensors in late June, then corrected the figure to 30 a day later."

As a result of the botched installations, the Flock Safety AGD program, which was approved in April and paid for with $54,675 in federal grant money, ended just months later. The messy implementation was a major factor, but the program........

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