SpotCrime and the Shooting Icon

SpotCrime continues to be the only major crime mapping company to break out shootings into it’s own icon.

Often it is very difficult to identify that a shooting has happened from the crime data we receive. A lot of the time, we are left to using the description associated with an incident (given there is a description provided) to determine if a shooting occurred. 

Most crime mapping sites will map a shooting with some sort of assault icon. This causes shootings to get lost - filed under the same icon as fist fights, knife attacks, kidnappings, and verbal assaults. We believe this does not give a full picture of crime in the area.

We rely on open crime incident data sets, RMS data, CAD data, UCR data and/or a mix of the bunch. It just depends on what agencies make available. Not all agencies make the same data available. The inconsistency in datasets from agency to agency and jurisdiction to jurisdiction has also made this task incredibly difficult.

This is one of the many reasons why we created the SpotCrime Open Crime Standard (SOCS). It’s also a reason why we wholeheartedly support open data sites. Open data gives anyone the ability to collect, look at, analyze, and share data.

SpotCrime has also begun mapping police involved shootings. Police involved shootings are not typically found in public crime incident datasets, UCR reports, CAD data, or RMS data. However, more and more cities are beginning to release this information as a stand-alone dataset. We are not equating criminal shooting with a law enforcement shooting, but we are saying that whenever a human feels the need to shoot at another person that data is valuable and likely an indicator of what is going on in that area.

Shooting data is important

What is more threatening to a bystander - a stray bullet or a stray fist?

*Edit: Since the publication of this blog post, we came across an NYTimes opinion piece by NYPD Police Commissioner Bratton. In the piece Bratton explains that even though Shootings are not in their stand alone Uniform Crime Report reporting category (they are counted as an aggravated assault instead), the N.Y.P.D has chosen to track shootings separately from aggravated assaults since 1993. We believe this proves how important it is to break out shootings into their own category.

Shooting data, on the surface, creates the ability to stay informed or make decisions about what areas to possibly avoid. And, like recently, police involved shooting data can help determine how efficient a police force operates. 

Shooting data can help determine violent trends. It may be true that gun crimes in certain cities follow different patterns. For example, shots to the legs versus shots the head and chest. Or, targeted shootings vs non-targeted shootings.

Going deeper, a recent FiveThirtyEight.com article explores how shooting data can help determine gun violence trends and ‘help the public understand the “why” behind changing crime trends’. Not only can data feeds keep the public informed, the article goes on to explain how ‘cities might consider setting reductions in shooting incidents (in addition to lowering the murder rate) as a metric of success and focus their open data resources on enabling residents to truly evaluate gun violence patterns’.

Are police trying to hide data on shootings? 

Typically, crime mapping sites employed by cities make it fairly difficult to determine if a shooting occurred.

Can you tell where shootings occurred in Chicago from one of these maps?

In cities like St Louis, MO there is no up-to-date open crime data feed. And, their vendor crime mapping site doesn’t make it easy to identify if the crime involved a shooting. Even though we are mapping the monthly data available in St Louis, majority of the shooting data we map comes from a media outlet dedicated specifically to the gun violence in the city - StLouisGunCrime.com.

Cities like Baltimore, Detroit, Milwaukee, San Francisco, Oakland, and New Orleans do include information about shootings in the crime datasets on their open data websites. However, the crime mapping sites they’re using make it nearly impossible to determine if someone was involved in a fist fight or gun fight.

Luckily in all three cities, the open crime data feeds specifically address whether or not there has been a shooting or gun involved. 

Sometimes if a department is using the FBI UCR hierarchy rule, the most serious crime associated with the incident is used causing the shooting to disappear. San Francisco follows UCR guidelines, however, on their open data site provides all crimes involved in a particular incident (related incidents have the same case number).

Concerns over mapping shooting data

Only releasing CAD data could be a cause for concern to loop shootings in with a different icon. CAD data is normally calls for service data meaning the crime types initially reported can differ than what shows up in a police report (if one was taken). A caller may report ‘Shots Fired’ which later, after police arrive on the scene, may be just fireworks or a car backfiring.

Does a map of shootings that are ‘Shots Heard’ from CAD data paint a distorted picture of violent crime in the area? Perhaps. Are more people likely to report possible shootings if they know their neighbors are doing the same? Maybe.

Answers to these questions are pretty hard to determine unless the data is there. 

So, does your city make it easy to identify shootings? Are they releasing data on police involved shootings?

Now that more and more agencies are on board with the open data movement, make sure to encourage your city to release good datasets. Send them SOCS. The more public information made openly available, the better.