Spring Break
City Police tests new gunshot detection system
Issue date: 11/20/08
Senior Andrew Brandel, who lives at the Sigma Phi Epsilon House on West 29th Street, was on his way to class on Monday when he encountered several police officers firing gun rounds into a truck.
"They had a truck outside in the middle of the road and it was filled with sand," Brandel said. "There was one guy standing in it and firing the gun into the sand."
The police were testing the new SECURES gunshot detection system, which was given to Hopkins at no cost by Planning Systems Incorporated (PSI).
The three-mile radius covered by the system encompasses the area around campus, including the whole Charles Village area.
According to Edmund Skrodzki, Executive Director of Campus Safety, it will increase protection in the Homewood campus and the Charles Village area.
"It adds another layer of high-tech security to protect the University community as well as the Charles Village residents both as a deterrent and a faster response to a shooting incident," Skrodzki said.
The new technology was implemented by Hopkins and the Baltimore Police without the knowledge of the Charles Village community.
Brandel said that he had not been notified that the test, which continued for more than 15 minutes and was rather disturbing, was going to occur.
Dana Moore, head of the Charles Village Civic Association (CVCA), also voiced concern that no one from the CVCA was asked to participate in the decision-making process for the SECURES system.
"Given the system's reach beyond the campus' footprint and into Charles Village proper, the community associations within Charles Village should have been consulted and our constituents polled as to whether this experiment is one we wished to engage in with our good neighbor, JHU," Moore wrote in an e-mail.
Tracey Reeves, the Hopkins director of News and Information, said that she could not imagine why the Charles Village community would have anything against the system as there are no privacy issues and it gives the residents more protection.
"They had a truck outside in the middle of the road and it was filled with sand," Brandel said. "There was one guy standing in it and firing the gun into the sand."
The police were testing the new SECURES gunshot detection system, which was given to Hopkins at no cost by Planning Systems Incorporated (PSI).
The three-mile radius covered by the system encompasses the area around campus, including the whole Charles Village area.
According to Edmund Skrodzki, Executive Director of Campus Safety, it will increase protection in the Homewood campus and the Charles Village area.
"It adds another layer of high-tech security to protect the University community as well as the Charles Village residents both as a deterrent and a faster response to a shooting incident," Skrodzki said.
The new technology was implemented by Hopkins and the Baltimore Police without the knowledge of the Charles Village community.
Brandel said that he had not been notified that the test, which continued for more than 15 minutes and was rather disturbing, was going to occur.
Dana Moore, head of the Charles Village Civic Association (CVCA), also voiced concern that no one from the CVCA was asked to participate in the decision-making process for the SECURES system.
"Given the system's reach beyond the campus' footprint and into Charles Village proper, the community associations within Charles Village should have been consulted and our constituents polled as to whether this experiment is one we wished to engage in with our good neighbor, JHU," Moore wrote in an e-mail.
Tracey Reeves, the Hopkins director of News and Information, said that she could not imagine why the Charles Village community would have anything against the system as there are no privacy issues and it gives the residents more protection.
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