Man Killed in Officer-Involved Shooting in Central Square

The Middlesex District Attorney’s Office is investigating a fatal officer-involved shooting involving Cambridge police that occurred Friday night, according to District Attorney Marian T. Ryan.

The shooting occurred near Temple Street in Central Square shortly after 8 p.m., when a Cambridge police officer responded to a call about suspicious individuals in a parking lot behind area businesses, according to Ryan.

A man in his 60s exited a vehicle in the lot and pointed a loaded gun at responding officers, Ryan wrote. A physical altercation followed as officers attempted to disarm him, after which multiple shots were fired, striking the man.

The man was pronounced dead at the scene after officers attempted to administer aid. Several CPD officers were also taken to area hospitals as a precaution and were later released.

Ryan did not say whether anyone else was injured during the shooting.

All of the responding officers were wearing body-worn cameras at the time of the shooting, according to Ryan. Investigators are reviewing the body-camera footage as part of the probe.

Investigators have closed Temple Street and asked individuals to avoid the area as a large police presence remains on scene.

The circumstances surrounding the shooting remain under investigation.

The shooting is the second fatal officer-involved shooting involving Cambridge police in just over three years. In January 2023, Cambridge police officer Liam McMahon fatally shot Arif Sayed Faisal, a 20-year-old University of Massachusetts Boston student experiencing a mental health crisis.

Faisal’s shooting sparked intense backlash against the department, with activists criticizing CPD for not publicly naming the officer until nearly 10 months later, when the Middlesex DA announced McMahon would not be prosecuted after a judge found his actions that afternoon to be “objectively reasonable.”

Faisal’s death prompted a series of changes within the department, including the department-wide rollout of body-worn cameras in April 2025, more than two years after the shooting. Footage from those cameras is now being reviewed as part of the investigation into Friday’s shooting.

This is a developing story and will be updated

—Staff writer Shawn A. Boehmer can be reached at [email protected] and on Signal at shawnb.18. Follow him on X @ShawnBoehmer.