TACOMA — The Tacoma Police Department’s three-year test run of ShotSpotter gunshot-detection technology installed in a neighborhood that has struggled with violence has ended prematurely without ever activating one of the devices that police leaders said would save lives.

Trying out ShotSpotter was part of an $800,000 grant from the Bureau of Justice Assistance the police department announced in April last year that included a 3-D scanner for crime scenes and a device designed to lift fingerprints from discharged bullet casings.

About $300,000 of that grant money is left over a two-year period, according to the police department, which is working with the Bureau of Justice Assistance to reallocate the funds to preexisting tech programs within the department.

ShotSpotter promised to get

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