SoundThinking Commissions Survey to Solicit Resident Opinions on ShotSpotter

The company behind ShotSpotter commissioned a survey to solicit Cambridge residents’ opinions on the technology — roughly a week before the city began recruiting residents for an advisory body that will weigh whether to permanently ban it.

Beginning Sept. 1, Cambridge residents received texts asking them to complete a 36-question survey gauging public support for and awareness of ShotSpotter, the automated gunshot detection software.

The survey was sent by Relay Research, a polling firm hired by ShotSpotter’s parent company SoundThinking, company spokesperson Jerome Filip confirmed.

“SoundThinking commissioned a community-based survey as an internal research effort to better understand residents’ views on ShotSpotter and public safety,” Filip wrote.

The company’s move to independently solicit resident opinion comes as the city has waffled over its use of the controversial technology. The City Council voted in May to terminate Cambridge’s use of ShotSpotter after years of debate over privacy concerns and the system’s effectiveness.

But on July 4, weeks after the vote, Cambridge Public Works employee Xavier Bautista, 32, was fatally shot in an area previously covered by ShotSpotter and was not found for nearly an hour. The shooting sparked a wave of backlash against city leaders for removing the system, which police said could have brought responders to the scene sooner.

The Council reversed its vote on Aug. 3, bringing ShotSpotter back online for 90 days while it piloted a new effort to gather resident feedback and prepare recommendations on ShotSpotter and other public safety technology.

SoundThinking’s survey opens with demographic questions, asking respondents their age, gender, zip code, race, political party affiliation, and who they voted for in the last election. It then asks residents to rank how safe they feel in the city, how strongly they agree with statements supporting ShotSpotter, and their current impressions of the technology.

One question asks respondents to rank how convincing they find arguments made in favor of ShotSpotter in Cambridge — one of which describes the circumstances of Bautista’s death.

“With no one to call 911 and without ShotSpotter’s automatic alerting, first responders were unable to treat Xavier,” the question reads. “The tragic death of Xavier is an example of the exact kind of case ShotSpotter is designed to catch.”

SoundThinking has conducted similar surveys in cities where its technology has come under fire. In April, the company polled residents of Chicago, which terminated its use of ShotSpotter in 2024, posing questions closely resembling those sent to Cambridge residents.

The company collected responses from 616 “likely Chicago voters,” 69 percent of whom supported “the use of gun detection technology in Chicago,” according to its website.

Residents and city councilors said they were surprised to learn of SoundThinking’s involvement, which is not disclosed anywhere in the survey. Filip did not respond to a request for comment on the omission.

City Councilor Marc C. McGovern said he was skeptical of company-sponsored surveys and preferred the city’s more structured approach to soliciting resident opinion.

“I just hope people will, on wherever they stand on this issue, allow us the space to have that process and engage in that process, and not try to manipulate it or pollute it in one way or another,” McGovern said.

City spokesperson Jeremy H. Warnick wrote in a statement that Cambridge had no prior knowledge of the survey.

“While they are a private company and not obligated to notify the City, it would have been appreciated if they had informed City officials, particularly at a time in which we are launching the Civic Assembly process and seeking to engage various community members about ShotSpotter and video surveillance in our parks,” Warnick wrote.

The survey closed Sept. 8, days before the city began recruiting for the Civic Assembly, which will weigh whether to remove ShotSpotter and review other surveillance technology. Warnick confirmed that invitations should begin arriving in residents’ mailboxes Thursday.

—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.