The streets are an evolving challenge for Tucson Police. There’s more street racing and shootings where lots of shots are being fired. Now they’re turning to technology to help.
Criminals are getting more brazen, blatant and dangerous.
Besides extreme speeding, street racers are taking over major intersections for stunt sessions called sideshows, or street takeovers. As if that weren’t dangerous enough some of them bring guns—and use them.
Police say in other cases they‘ve seen gunslinging kids fire more than a hundred shots .
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Now police are bringing more technology into the battle:
More microphones that detect gunshots and calculate the direction they came from.
More license plate readers to identify cars, and surveillance cameras that move to help track trouble.
TPD Captain Adam Kidd says, “So when we get information of some of these street racing or sideshow events, we can deploy some of the pan-tilt-zoom cameras, our license plate readers, the mobile shot spot detection devices, to not only help us in the investigative aspect but also as more of an early warning system when these incidents start popping up.”