Memphis/Shelby County Law Enforcement Foundation

This police foundation readily names that they have “instrumental in facilitating contributions from private donors, corporations, associations and other community groups to provide funding assistance to increase safety.” Starting in 2010, the foundation began funding the implementation of surveillance cameras in Memphis and Shelby County. The foundation has now provided at least $2.8 million funding for more than 330 cameras.

SHOTSPOTTER

The Memphis Police Department uses ShotSpotter, a gunshot detection surveillance technology which has been demonstrated to increase police violence in the Black and brown communities where it is primarily deployed across the United States.

Documents obtained via public records request:

- MPD contract with SoundThinking

FUSUS

The Memphis Police Department has a contract with Fusus. The agency uses Fusus as the “situational awareness” which integrates multiple surveillance technologies into a single map at the agency’s real time crime center. Additionally, Connect Memphis is a partnership between the agency and Fusus encouraging private residents to purchase surveillance cameras from Fusus or integrate other surveillance cameras, such as an Amazon Ring camera, into the MPD’s existing camera network.

Real Time Crime Center

The Memphis Police Department constructed a $3.5 million real time crime center in the early 2000’s, modeling this infrastructure after the New York Police Department’s center. This center is now the core of the agency’s “data driven” policing strategy. The agency contracted with Fusus for the situational awareness software that provides the foundation for integrating the agency’s multiple technologies and datasets. Fusus’ software includes private residents and businesses registering and integrating privately owned cameras into the agency’s network.

AUTOMATED LICENSE PLATE READERS

Both the Memphis Police Department and the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office contract with Flock Safety for automated license plate readers (ALPRs). The Memphis Police Department has used car-mounted ALPRs since at least 2009.

CrimeTracer (formerly known as COPLINKX)

In 2021, the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security and coordinated in partnership with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, the Tennessee Fusion Center, the Tennessee Association of Chiefs of Police, the Tennessee Sheriffs’ Association, and the Tennessee District Attorneys General Conference contracted with Forensic Logic, owned by SoundThinking, for use of COPLINKX by all local and county policing agencies in the state. In 2023, SoundThinking rebranded the product as CrimeTracer. The company proclaims that this software is the largest law enforcement database in the country.

Operation Blue CRUSH

The Memphis Police Department introduced this IBM predictive policing program in the fall of 2005 and expanded it in 2006 with the creation of a new unit, the Criminal Apprehension Team. MPD partners with the University of Memphis for the “Criminal Reduction Utilising Statistical History” program which attempts to predict future crimes through geographic “hot spot” mapping. The Memphis Police Department still lists Blue CRUSH as a core program of the agency’s real time crime center.

Resources

Public Safety Institute 2020 Assessment of Data-Driven Deployment

Public Safety Institute 2022 Assessment of Data-Driven Deployment