Cambridge City Council Temporarily Reactivates ShotSpotter for 90 Days

The Cambridge City Council voted Monday to temporarily reactivate ShotSpotter for 90 days, one month after the fatal shooting of a city employee renewed debate over the technology’s removal.

The vote reverses, for now, the council’s May decision to end Cambridge’s use of the gunshot detection system after years of criticism over its effectiveness and privacy concerns.

The technology returned to the council’s agenda after Xavier Bautista, a 32-year-old Public Works Department employee, was found fatally shot on July 4. Investigators believe Bautista was shot shortly before 4:30 a.m. and discovered by a pedestrian about an hour later.

Some residents and police unions argued that ShotSpotter could have alerted police sooner, potentially allowing emergency personnel to render aid earlier.

In a 6-3 vote, the council moved to “take all necessary steps” to reinstate the city’s contract with SoundThinking, ShotSpotter’s parent company, and activate the devices for 90 days — while the city convenes a resident assembly to review the technology and other public safety measures.

Councilor Timothy R. Flaherty defended ShotSpotter as a tool for law enforcement and investigators, saying that while it is “not designed to deter crime,” it can assist in emergency response.

“This is an effort to allow police and emergency medical services to respond promptly to both save lives and solve crimes,” Flaherty said.

Some councilors struck a different tone, maintaining their skepticism over ShotSpotter’s efficacy and raising concerns about the system’s handling of data.

Councilor Jivan G. Sobrinho-Wheeler, who voted to remove ShotSpotter in May, said the technology is ineffective and not worth the potential privacy risks to residents.

“ShotSpotter told Cambridge police eight times in 2025 that there were gunshots in The Port or Cambridgeport. The majority of those times, there was no evidence there was a gunshot,” Sobrinho-Wheeler said.

The order, sponsored by Mayor Sumbul Siddiqui and Councilor Marc C. McGovern, directs City Manager Yi-An Huang ’05 to convene a “pilot resident assembly” composed of a representative group of Cambridge residents selected through a lottery.

Siddiqui said the assembly would allow for direct, immediate feedback from residents on public safety, and prioritize residents whose voices she said had been neglected.

“For the past month, I’ve heard from many residents — particularly those neighborhoods most affected by gun violence — who’ve told us that they do not feel their voices are part of that decision,” Siddiqui said. “This substitute reflects our attempt to reconcile those two realities.”

Before the council’s discussion, more than a dozen residents spoke during public comment, expressing support for or opposition to ShotSpotter.

Joanna Jimenez, the mother of 21-year-old Angel Nieves, who was fatally shot in North Cambridge in January 2025, spoke in favor of ShotSpotter during the meeting.

“If it wasn’t working well enough, then it should have been updated, improved, and held to a higher standard, not eliminated,” Jimenez said. “We don’t abandon public safety tools because they need improvement — we make them better.”

Jimenez said she has often wondered whether an alert to police on the night her son was shot would have changed the outcome.

“No family should have to bury a loved one and spend the rest of their lives wondering if a faster response could have made a difference,” she said.

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

—Staff writer Claire A. Michal can be reached at [email protected] and on Signal at ClaireMichal.154.