A call for more crimefighting technology was heard Tuesday from Cambridge’s police commissioner at a community meeting about a fatal shooting two weeks earlier on Clifton Street, accompanied by a call by the slain man’s mother for the community to trust in local police officers.
Commissioner Christine Elow and other city officials took occasionally sharp questions from residents at a community meeting at the Peabody School in North Cambridge about lack of notice to neighbors after violence, lack of long-term support for the families of victims, why some areas aren’t better lit as night falls and why police didn’t use their sirens when responding to the scene of the attack that killed Angel Nieves, 21, less than two weeks into the new year.
Police got calls at 11:25 p.m. Jan. 13 that Nieves had been hit by multiple gunshots from a white SUV that fled toward Rindge Avenue. Nieves died soon after at Mount Auburn Hospital. There have been no arrests, but “we have an entire team from the Cambridge Police Department, the Massachusetts State Police and the District Attorney’s Office that have been working this case around the clock,” Elow said. “This is a top priority.”
It was known quickly by police that Nieves had been targeted, and with his death the risk of more gunfire was over, Elow said. But neighbors said they remained rattled by the knowledge of how close they were to the violence. “This was a shooting at 11:30 at night. What if I’m out parking my car?” one asked. Another recounted hearing the sounds of another, long-ago shooting: “It’s kind of not great to think, okay, those were the sounds of somebody being murdered.”
Officials offered some defenses and explanations to questions from an audience of a few dozen people: While some want more of the lights that can make people feel safe, those living nearest the lights might find them intrusive – and the lights can draw activity as well as repel it; and sirens are used for getting through traffic and used only when necessary.
Speaking from faith
Support for the officials, and a call for residents to rethink the crime that brought them there, came from Joanna Jimenez, the mother.
“I don’t harbor any hate or resentment, because my lord Jesus Christ does not allow me to be that way,” Jimenez said. “It’s unfortunate that we’re here today, but I have faith that through god, all things are possible – and this had to happen so that we can come together and speak.”
“What I want everyone to do,” Jimenez said, “is focus on building trust in the community with the police, because we can’t do it on our own.” Police officers – some she identified by names or nicknames – “have been my stronghold when I had nothing,” Jimenez said.
There had been skepticism when Elow told residents that police had a lower-key response to the shooting when it became known Nieves was the only target, but Jimenez supported the commissioner. “I want to give you that peace of mind that it wasn’t a retaliation [for an earlier crime]. This was personal,” Jimenez said.
She was aware of online chatter about a 2021 case in which Nieves, then 17, was accused of killing his stepfather in Western Massachusetts. Two years ago he was found not guilty of the charges, she noted, and his killing – as he was walking home from visiting an ex-girlfriend – was unrelated.
The new Angel Nieves
He had been a “rebellious teenager” and caught up in criminal behavior, Jimenez said, but the tragedy of the killing was how completely he had turned his life around upon coming home from a stay in Fall River, and how short a time she had with the new Angel before the shooting.
“I got to enjoy him for only 14 days and watch him transform his whole life in the city that transforms everyone’s life,” Jimenez said. He was already working at a Boston chocolate shop, signed up for a Just A Start work training program and newly religious. “He was his brother’s keeper, even though he went down the wrong path … Before my son passed away, my son gave his life to Christ. So I rejoice in that.”
“Just he was he was coming back to life, a boy that had no hope now had hope, and they took it from him,” she said. “I’m not seeking justice, because I know god will do that for me.”
Incidents stand out
Law enforcement officials say they are working on some justice as well, along with the handful of other unresolved violent crimes from years past – police said Tuesday that Cambridge’s crime rate was “pretty stable,” albeit with more gun violence last year after historic lows.
There were 13 gunfire incidents in 2024, four of which drew blood. There were no deaths among the five victims of gunshot wounds, one of whom was injured in a road rage incident. (Most of these incidents involved residents hearing gunfire and police later finding shell casings proving where the shots came from.) A year earlier there had been six gunfire incidents for police to investigate, four of which drew blood. Among those six victims in 2023, there was one death, for which no one has been arrested.
As those incidents have stood out among the city’s relative calm, calls have grown for police to take action – but “some of the challenges that we’re having with our homicides is not that they’re unsolved, but that they are uncharged,” Elow said. “Some of the challenges that we have is [finding] people that are willing to go into court.”
Crimefighting with technology
That has never been easy, Elow said – but now there are ways to make up for it.
“One of the things that we’re really missing from our investigations is more technology,” Elow said. Though Cambridge has been cautious about allowing and installing devices that could be misused against residents engaged in lawful activity – and some of that concern was raised Tuesday by a resident – increasingly Cantabrigians are calling for it. A call for more community police made during the meeting went unanswered.
City-owned surveillance cameras will be up in public parts of Central Square likely in March as a test, Elow said. The cameras – for which a vendor is being chosen Monday – will be “an amazing tool for us to help with our investigations,” Elow said.
In addition, an order will be before the City Council on Monday asking for license plate readers, Elow said. The agenda also includes requests for a drone with infrared cameras; and a “GrayKey” tool that gets data from locked phones or other devices.
Shift in recent violence
Because it oversees private property, the Cambridge Housing Authority was able to put cameras in hot spots for criminal activity within its Newtowne Court and Washington Elms housing project.
Both 2022 and 2023 – despite the latter year’s low number of gunfire reports – saw five or six incidents in Central Square and The Port and and none in North Cambridge. (The final gunfire incident of 2022 was in Neighborhood 9 between Fresh Pond and Alewife, putting it near North Cambridge.) While the number of gunfire incidents in The Port in 2024 stayed consistent, there were also three in North Cambridge and Neighborhood 9, two of which came in November and December.
Only a month later, the second of this year’s gunfire violence was again in North Cambridge.
Lessons from The Port
Elow said she wanted to review data before agreeing that serious crime was trending down in The Port but up in North Cambridge. But she believed “there was a lot more activity” in parts of The Port before the CHA cameras were installed.
Kessen Green, director of outreach and community programs for the Cambridge Police Department, believed a combination of efforts had helped move the needle in making The Port safer and less violent – but “that needle is still moving,” he said. The work is also complex, having to do with everything from residents’ investment in their community to job opportunities for youth.
“We are always thinking about how to prevent instead of be reactionary, right? Now we’re lucky to be in a preventative state” in The Port, Green said. “We have to transition that – what we’ve put together with the young people there – into our community here.”
One speaker announced the beginnings of a new North Cambridge neighborhood association and suggested people send email to 02140northcambridge@gmail.com for updates.
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That faith is not deserved. Technology doesn’t prevent these issues at all, and often sics police on innocent people, with disproportionate impacts on already over policed communities.