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Timing is everything

Story today in the Mercury News about a guy getting shot in East Palo Alto.


In broad daylight and a block away from busy University Avenue, a gunman opened fire Thursday on a passing vehicle in East Palo Alto, injuring the 28-year-old driver in the leg.


Police arrived at the scene of the shooting the intersection of Farrington Way and Kavanaugh Drive about 1:15 p.m. and found eight 9mm shell casings. A short while later, police were alerted that a wounded man was in a vehicle on the 2400 block of Gonzaga Street.


A group of residents stood near the shooting victim's bullet-riddled, late-model Pontiac Grand Prix as it was towed from Gonzaga Street.


The gunshots were first detected by the city's Shotspotter system, which uses sound waves and GPS to pinpoint the location of gunfire. In this instance, the system beat phoned reports by about two minutes,
police said.



Ok, so every body carries a cell phone these days. What I want to know is how on earth did it take the "group of residents" 120 seconds to make a call to 911? Are there shots fired so often in East Paly that they've gotten used to it?

Silver Lining: great PR for Shotspotter.

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Comments (2)

Keith:

Surely you learned about diffusion of responsibility in some psyche class, right?

Blake:

Yeah, but there's something different (to me at least) about the Kitty Genovese incident and this EPA shooting. Maybe it's the fact that in the Genovese case, most of the 38 witnesses (as I understand it) were watching/listening through their windows from upper floor apartments. Almost TV like in nature.

The EPA Shooting was not only in broad daylight, but also right in front of people's faces (i.e. they could just as easily been shot). I know I'd call the cops if I was narrowly missed...

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