COLUMBIA, S.C. — The Columbia Police Department launched a new tool to track gun violence in the city. The public safety dashboard organizes statistics by location and victim.
The dashboard utilizes data from ShotSpotter, gunshot-detecting technology used to pinpoint where shootings happen, to help provide information to the public regarding shootings. The dashboard shows that many shootings are highly concentrated in North Columbia with 334 shootings as of May 29.
Chief of Police Skip Holbrook said this dashboard is to help keep track but also serve as a call to action for residents and lawmakers.
“We want to share this data with the public so our public can understand where we are as a community," Holbrook said. "This is a shared responsibility we’re often times reacting to an act of violence but it’s a shared responsibility we’ve got to do something to change the course of this trend."
The dashboard also tracks gun violence victims based on age, sex, and race. According to the dashboard's data going back as far as 2015, most shooting victims are between the ages of 20 and 24. Based on gender 84.6% of victims are male and, for race, 92.6% of victims are Black.
Chief Holbrook said he hopes these numbers provided by the new dashboard will be eye-opening to residents.
“We want to share this data with the public so our public can understand where we are as a community," Holbrook said. "This is a shared responsibility we’re oftentimes reacting to an act of violence but it’s a shared responsibility we’ve got to do something to change the course of this trend."
He added that the announcement comes on National Gun Violence Awareness Day. As of May 29, there have been 44 shootings in Columbia and 84.7% of them have been non-fatal. Columbia Police officers wore orange ribbons in recognition of the day.