Cambridge City Council votes to temporarily restore controversial ShotSpotter gunshot detection technology

The Cambridge City Council voted Monday to temporarily restore the city’s ShotSpotter gunshot detection technology in areas where it was previously used, following renewed debate over the system after the fatal July 4 shooting of a city employee. 

The 6-3 vote reinstates the controversial gunshot detection system while the city creates a resident assembly — a randomly selected group of Cambridge residents tasked with reviewing the technology, hearing evidence and community feedback, and making recommendations about whether the city should continue using ShotSpotter in the future. 

ShotSpotter will remain active during that review process of 90 days. The City Council plans to revisit the issue after receiving recommendations from the assembly.  

Developed by the security company SoundThinking, ShotSpotter had been in use in Cambridge city from 2014 until the council voted in May to discontinue its use throughout the city following debate among officials and residents. 

While supporters of ShotSpotter say the technology is a crucial tool to help police and emergency responders locate gunfire more quickly, critics have questioned its accuracy and raised concerns about privacy implications and the technology’s role in policing communities of color. 

The decision to restore the system came after the July 4 killing of Xavier Bautista, 32, a Cambridge Public Works Department employee and father. Bautista was shot around 4:30 a.m. near Broadway and Norfolk Street, and about an hour passed before a pedestrian found his body and called 911. He was pronounced dead at the scene. 

Following the shooting, local police unions and other supporters of ShotSpotter argued that the technology could have helped alert first responders sooner and that the city should not have removed the system in the first place. 

Councilors debate public safety, Shotspotter’s reliability, and community input 

Monday’s meeting began with public comment, where residents offered competing views on whether the city should bring back the technology. More than a dozen residents and advocates spoke against restoring ShotSpotter, while only a handful argued the system should be reinstalled. 

During the council debate, members remained divided over the technology’s effectiveness, but largely agreed that additional community input was needed. 

Mayor Sumbul Siddiqui, who voted to end the city’s use of ShotSpotter in May, said her concerns about the system’s accuracy and effectiveness remained. However, she said conversations with residents after the July shooting showed that some community members felt they had not been fully included in the earlier decision. 

“This substitute is not about reaching a predetermined outcome, nor is it an endorsement of the technology,” Siddiqui said. “It’s about making sure that whatever decision we ultimately make is informed by both evidence and the lived experiences of the people who are most affected.” 

Siddiqui added that the resident assembly is intended to ensure that future decisions regarding the technology are guided by both research and community voices. 

“I hope that this process will build greater trust in whatever decision we ultimately make,” Siddiqui said, “because our goal should not simply be to reach an answer, but to ensure the community has confidence in how we got there.” 

Councilor Denise Simmons noted that many members of her community have strongly supported restoring the technology “because that’s what made them feel safe.” 

Councilor Tim Flaherty argued that ShotSpotter should be viewed as a tool to aid emergency response rather than prevent crimes. 

“ShotSpotter is a technology that saves lives and solves crimes,” he said. “It is not used as a surveillance system. It is not designed to record and collect data.”

Other councilors maintained that there is no evidence the technology improved public safety in Cambridge.

“All of us are with this question of how best to protect the community, and there has been no change whatsoever from anything I’ve seen, and I’ve dug deep to see whether this specific technology could make our community safer … and there’s no evidence that it does,” Councilor Patricia Nolan said. “I really do not think we should turn it back on.”

Councilor Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler questioned whether the system should be reinstated before the assembly period takes place. 

“Why don’t we do outreach to residents before we put up cameras and microphones in their neighborhood and ask them for input?” Sobrinho-Wheeler said. “If this amendment said, ‘Let’s do the community outreach first … before we turn on the surveillance technology,’ I would vote for that. I just think this approach has it the wrong way around.” 

Residents share concerns about surveillance, ineffectiveness 

Several residents urged the council not to restore the technology, citing concerns about its effectiveness, surveillance, and community trust. 

Among them was Gideon Epstein, a policy counsel with the ACLU of Massachusetts and a Cambridge resident, who argued that the ShotSpotter policy is “ineffective at reducing gun violence.”

“During the last 12 years the technology has been active in Cambridge, there is no evidence that it helped Cambridge police solve serious crimes or help them to hold perpetrators of gun violence accountable,” he said. “Based on these facts, ShotSpotter doesn’t meet the surveillance technology ordinance’s standard for approval.” 

Sophie Gillard, a Cambridge resident, raised concerns about the use of surveillance technology and its effects on residents who fear increased law enforcement scrutiny. 

“Watching these meetings, it felt like this tragedy has been treated like a political weapon and not like a wake-up call,” Gillard said. “You should be using council time to focus on actually improving council public safety by addressing gun violence, not by bringing back a technology that threatens the lives of our neighbors.” 

Andrew Kim, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America and a Cambridge resident, pointed to concerns over its effectiveness and alleged the system has ties to ICE and the Department of Homeland Security.

“This attempt to bring back a widely unpopular surveillance system has made a circus of a tragedy and is a deeply shameful display from his counsel,” Kim said. “That said, I admit that if the people of Cambridge collectively state that they want a surveillance system, then they should have one. This is a democracy. We shouldn’t be in the business of denying the will of the people. But they deserve a system that actually works.” 

Supporters say system should be improved, not eliminated 

Residents in support of ShotSpotter argued that the meeting that the technology should be evaluated and improved rather than removed. 

Joanna Jimenez, whose son, Angel Nieves, was killed in a 2025 Cambridge shooting, said she believes the city should have continued using the system and noted the system did not alert when her son was shot. 

Jimenez acknowledged concerns about ShotSpotter’s reliability, but said the solution is to focus on improving the system. 

“In my opinion, the system should never have been removed. 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.”

Jason Stockmann, a Cambridge resident, stressed that the debate surrounding ShotSpotter should move away from privacy concerns.

“I think that the conflation of this device with violations of privacy or civil rights is largely illusory,” Stockmann added. “It’s anonymous, and it only reports activities that should not be happening in public. You should not be discharging a firearm, and you should not be using illegal fireworks in public.”

Stockmann also urged the council to restore ShotSpotter temporarily and explore ways to improve its accuracy. He said Cambridge’s data scientists could work with the company to improve the technology, adding that even with false positives, accurate alerts could help responders reach shooting scenes more quickly. 

“We have to use the best available tools that we have, and then try to improve them over time,” he said. “We shouldn’t let their flaws stand in the way of progress.”