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Columbus police work to stop celebratory gunfire on New Year's Eve

During New Year's Eve, police said even with more than 300 alerts about shots fired, celebratory gunfire was down compared to last year.

COLUMBUS, Ohio — What goes up, must come down. Simple physics, right?

However, every year people shoot off celebratory gunfire as the new year hits.

“In the past 24 hours, we've had  304 alerts for ShotSpotter,” said Columbus Police Deputy Chief Richard Bash.

On a typical day, Bash said there are 10 alerts. Every year on New Year's Eve, people go into the streets and fire off guns.

“Those projectiles will maintain enough velocity to kill someone,” Bash said.

There were 24 shots in a burst at one location overnight.

Columbus police took the information from where ShotSpotter was alerted to last year and sent community liaison officers to those addresses ahead of time this year.

Bash said the officers knocked on the doors to let people know that last year there were reports of shots fired nearby and talk about the dangers of shooting into the air.

"They also created fliers to put up in the neighborhoods as well,” Bash said.

Despite the warnings, Columbus police said there was still gunfire.

“It appears, anecdotally in my experience that this is a little bit less than it was last year. That may be due to what officers on the streets are doing,” Bash said.

The celebratory gunfire was down from the estimated 350 incidents of gunfire last year.

“It could be that they couldn't get ammo. It could be that the message got through,” Bash said.

This is why Bash is excited the city approved funding to expand the ShotSpotter program in the three zones, and add another area.

They also are adding license plate readers.

“My goal is to see a huge reduction in firearm related injuries,” Bash said.

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