The company that markets high-tech sensors capable of locating and providing information on gunshots moments after they’re fired is proposing to expand the technology into an area of the District ravaged by gang warfare and other violent crime.

Santa Clara, Calif.-based ShotSpotter Inc.’s system already is in use in sections of the Metropolitan Police Department’s Fifth, Sixth and Seventh districts, covering 11 square miles of Northeast and Southeast Washington.

Expanding its use to 2 square miles of the Third District — Columbia Heights, Park View, LeDroit Park and Shaw — would cost roughly $400,000, plus maintenance, according to a company proposal submitted last week to Mayor Adrian Fenty, MPD Chief Cathy Lanier, Ward 1 D.C. Council Member Jim Graham and Ward 2 Council Member Jack Evans.

Those neighborhoods have been the scene of an increasing number of homicides and other violent crimes in recent months. Graham, who represents Columbia Heights, said recently the blocks around 14th Street and Columbia Road are “under siege with this gang warfare.” Evans, who represents Shaw, solicited the ShotSpotter proposal and recently met with company representatives to discuss a deal.

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“That will have tremendous amount of support in this area,” Kevin Chapple, a Shaw advisory neighborhood commissioner, said of ShotSpotter. “The community’s been crying out for that recently.”

ShotSpotter, priced at roughly $200,000 per square mile, immediately alerts police to gunfire, pinpoints the location of the shot and determines the caliber of weapon used. The company’s $1.3 million offer includes $398,000 for the new installation, $135,075 for maintenance on the existing devices and $600,000 to upgrade the entire D.C. system to wireless.

Lanier’s plan is to eventually install ShotSpotter citywide, but in the short term focus on high-crime areas in the Third, Fifth and Sixth police districts, MPD spokeswoman Traci Hughes said. Costs are still being ironed out.

The original ShotSpotter network was paid for by the FBI, though the District is expected to take over its maintenance and operation.

mneibauer@dcexaminer.com