Shot spotter is an acoustic technology sold to cities around the country. It's essentially a series of microphones which are intended to identify the sound of bullets being fired and then triangulate the location of those sounds. Ideally, the system gives police a heads up about shots fired where no 911 call is made.
Cambridge, Massachusetts had a Shot Spotter system for 12 years until this May when progressives on the city council voted to get rid of it because of concerns about surveillance in minority neighborhoods. Both the police and the city manager opposed removing the technology at the time but their concerns were ignored by a majority of the council.
“We shouldn’t frame safety only through surveillance or policing. We have to be expansive,” said Councillor Ayah Al-Zubi, who chairs the public safety committee and was the lead sponsor of the policy order. Councillors Marc McGovern, Patty Nolan and Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler co-sponsored the order. All four ultimately voted in favor of the order, along with Mayor Sumbul Siddiqui.
Councillor Ayah Al-Zubi, the lead sponsor, was endorsed by the DSA when she ran for office. Cambridge is a sanctuary she supports a rule that would make it impossible for the city to hire police officers who formerly worked for ICE. She also supports an alternative, unarmed response team for some calls.
City manager Yi-An Huang argued that Shot Spotter could be important in helping police get to a scene before a 911 call is made.
“When you look at the data a slightly different way, this is actually allowing [police] to respond more quickly, and that’s what we’ve been hearing from our police leadership,” Huang said.
Acting police commissioner Pauline Wells suggested getting rid of the system made no sense.
“Last Monday’s incident was as anomaly, and frankly, we’ve been lucky. But lucky is not a strategy,” Wells said. “We are literally going into a community meeting tomorrow night and telling them that the city of Cambridge voted down gunshot detection technology after an active shooter event. Why wouldn’t we want to keep our community as safe as possible?”
The councilors in favor of getting rid of the system argued it didn't work.
“In terms of what we tell the community tomorrow, I hope we can tell them that we’re using things that work,” said Sobrinho-Wheeler, in response to Wells’s remarks. “Let’s actually use proven technologies … rather than some security theater.”
There were also concerns from the public that Shot Spotter was being used by ICE to listen to private conversations. There's no evidence for that, but that seems to be what some people believed was happening or could happen. In the end, the vote was 5-2-2, with five councilors voting to remove it, two voting against and two voting present.
About six weeks later, 32-year-old Xavier Bautista was shot late at night and died at the scene. His body was found around 5:30 am on July 4. Authorities believe he'd been shot a full hour before the 911 call came in.
...the District Attorney’s preliminary investigation suggested that Bautista was shot around 4:30 a.m., about an hour before a pedestrian called 911. Prior to that, no 911 call was made, exactly the scenario under which ShotSpotter is supposed to help increase response time.
“If ShotSpotter detection was received at the time of this incident, Cambridge emergency personnel would have had the opportunity to discover the scene much sooner than 60 minutes after the incident, and render emergency aid to the victim,” the Cambridge Police Patrol Officers Association and Cambridge Police Superior Officers Association said in a joint statement. Police were against the change and have previously complained about it.
Councilor Patty Nolan, who had voted to remove Shot Spotter, argued that police didn't know for sure whether Bautista would have survived if he'd been found earlier. Nevertheless, a spokesperson for the Cambridge police said it was possible the system could have saved Bautista's life.
“It is plausible that an active ShotSpotter system could have resulted in first responders arriving on-scene to render aid to the victim more quickly, particularly in this case when the shooting was not reported via 9-1-1,” said Cambridge Police Department spokesperson Sgt. Robert Reardon. Reardon confirmed that ShotSpotter would have been in place in the area of the shooting.
Bautista's death really does appear to be exactly the sort of situation the City Manager argued could be helped by retaining Shot Spotter. Now that he's been proven right, the council might be reconsidering its vote.
Over the last decade, in Cambridge alone, the sensors flagged 11 instances of reported gunfire that weren’t called in to police, including a drive-by shooting and a domestic violence incident. The system is used effectively in more than a dozen cities across Massachusetts, including Boston and Somerville.
In response to Bautista’s killing, Cambridge Mayor Sumbul Siddiqui (D), who voted to get rid of ShotSpotter, said that “we’ll have some next steps.” The first should be restoring the system that might have saved the life of one of her own employees.
Hopefully they'll reverse themselves before someone else dies in the street over concerns that ICE is listening to conversations, but it's Massachusetts so there's no guarantee sanity will prevail.
Editor’s Note: The American people overwhelmingly support President Trump’s law and order agenda.
Help us fight back against the Democrats and Soros-backed DAs that refuse to enforce our laws to hold criminals accountable. Join HotAir VIP and use promo code FIGHT to receive 60% off your membership.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member