Ralph Clark is an Oakland native and the CEO of ShotSpotter, a gunshot-detection-technology company. He believes that unreported gunshots don’t act just as symptoms of community mistrust of police—they reinforce it. “When communities see police not responding to these [gunshot] events,” he said over the phone, “but at the same time have the resources to respond to low-level arrests and intercepts for marijuana and stop-and-frisk, that’s a pretty cynical situation.”

Many cities grappling with gun violence have turned to technology to break this cycle, usually empowering police with new forms of surveillance. In Louisville, Kentucky, 90 minutes from where Bledsoe was shot and killed, local government has turned to a novel combination of surveillance technologies to react to shots when citizens can’t, or won’t.* But automating police could mean enabling the cycle of mistrust that itself abets gun violence.

In 2017, Louisville finalized a $1.2 million contract with Clark’s company. ShotSpotters are microphones, usually attached to streetlights and traffic poles in neighborhoods with high rates of gun violence. They are attuned to the specific percussive audio signature of gunfire; when a gunshot is detected, the devices send immediate location data to police, telling them precisely where the shots rang out and, in some cases, the make and model of the gun and whether there are multiple shooters.

But Louisville is also considering using drones to even further augment the ShotSpotter system. Earlier this year, Bloomberg Philanthropies, the charity organization founded by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, gave Louisville’s Office of Civic Innovation and Technology $100,000 to tackle they city’s spiking homicide rate. Over a four-year period, the office will test the feasibility of using self-guided drones to investigate shootings: According to the proposal, the drones would be sent the GPS coordinates of a shooting location, then they would take pictures and videos ahead of first responders, complementing location data with visuals.

It’s a neat system with obvious benefits: “With [an unmanned aerial vehicle] equipped with eyes,” Clark said, “you’ll be able to get dispatch to the scene very, very quickly, first and foremost to see if there’s a victim there. And you can alert EMS. That you can potentially observe a potential [suspect or witness] and identify evidence is kind of intriguing, I think.” Clark and ShotSpotter were aware of the city’s plan, but not directly involved in the pitch process, he said.

According to Bard College’s Center for the Study of the Drone, more than 900 fire and police departments across the country have at least one drone. Eleven of Kentucky’s police and fire agencies have drones, according to the center. One of them is the Georgetown Police Department, about 30 minutes from Lexington.