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ShotDot USA has been awarded a sole source procurement contract to supply its firearm shot-counting product to law enforcement agencies in the State of Utah.
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The US subsidiary of Canberra’s control and shot recording technology company, Kord Group, will supply the “ShotDot” enhancement for Glock pistols, which was originally developed in Australia.
The “ShotDot” device, which fits into the already existing space of a standard police, military or commercial issue Glock pistol, accurately records the time, date, and number of discharges from a firearm, assisting in after-action and post-incident reviews.
“We are committed to enhancing officer performance, public safety, and fostering community trust,” according to Kord Group managing director Dr Peter Moran.
“This contract marks a significant achievement for the Kord Group in realising its goal of delivering accurate, dependable, and data-driven solutions for law enforcement that greatly improve evidence accuracy during after-action and judicial investigations.
“It will prove itself to be an essential technology for understanding what happened during future officer involved shootings.”
The devices are designed for law enforcement agencies across Utah to seamlessly incorporate ShotDot’s highly accurate and precise shot-tracking technology into their Glock pistols.
Each shot fired, ShotDot uniquely identifies and documents data for each bullet and is immediately stored and transferred to a database linked to every officer’s gun.
By documenting every shot, the device leaves no uncertainty as to the number of shots fired, what order they were fired in, and what time they were shot, thereby providing extensive accuracy and transparency during any investigation.
“We are delighted that the ShotDot has been chosen by Utah as its firearm shot tracking technology of choice,” said executive director Dominic Kelly.
“Our primary focus now is to ensure that the needs of law enforcement agencies across the state are met to the highest possible standard.
“We also look forward to introducing this highly innovative and world-leading technology into other states and markets across the US.”
Users of the ShotDot device, officially launched into the American law enforcement market in March this year, can access the tamper-proof data for judicial and administrative reviews, weapons performance, maintenance review, and efficient weapon review time from action situations where there may have been multiple persons shooting, according to the company.
The device can also differentiate shots from other forces and non-shot events, such as weapon drops which can occur in the line of duty. In the future, it could be enhanced to count shots in real time to assist the user or send an electronic transmission when the weapon is fired.
Kelly said the new device promotes efficient weapon review time and concrete results from action situations where there may have been multiple persons shooting.
“If investigators are trying to reconstruct an incident where 20 officers might have fired their weapons, it becomes very difficult, time consuming, overly complex to decipher who discharged their firearms and when, and can end without a clear result,” he said.
“In some examples, there may be more than 100 shots fired, and then an after-incident and judicial review. Investigators are trying to find out whether shots were fired in a correct way, but currently, the only resource they have is a police officer’s own recollection, the collection of casings, and inspection of weapons.
“If you can, from each weapon, accurately determine when each weapon was fired, down to the millisecond, which this technology will do, then they can reconstruct that event and know who fired first. This is extremely important from a self-governance point of view for insurance, safety, internal and judicial review. This is what the ShotDot does.”
