Gunfire-Locating Tech Not Enough for Police to Stop Vehicle

A gunfire-locating technology called ShotSpotter can’t be the sole basis for police to stop a car, the Seventh Circuit said in a matter of first impression.

But the panel split on whether enough other articulable facts supported Peoria, Ill., police officer Travis Ellefritz’s stop and search of a car in which Terrill A. Rickmon Sr. was a passenger.

Rickmon argued that ShotSpotter data alone shouldn’t be sufficient for police “to stop a vehicle in the immediate vicinity of a gunfire report without any individualized suspicion of that vehicle.”

“We generally agree with this proposition,” the court said. But the totality ...