The fifth gunfire incident of the year in Cambridge took place at approximately 11:12 p.m. Friday in Central Square, police said. There are no known victims.
Police said in an email early Saturday that a gunshot was reported and that officers “found ballistic evidence to confirm that a shooting had taken place” on Brookline Street between Massachusetts Avenue and Green Street, at side entrances of the Middle East nightclub complex. A witness told police within around five minutes of the incident also described seeing a weapon and the shooter, according to scanner reports.
The shooter fled on Massachusetts Avenue to the right, headed toward Lafayette Square, according to scanner calls. A second story told to police suggested there were two suspects who drove off in a vehicle in the same direction.
The gunfire may have resulted by a fight. Though the caller “heard a bang and thought it was a gunshot,” it was unclear at first because Fourth of July firecrackers were being set off. Shotspotter technology, which listens for gunfire, was not mentioned in either scanner reports.
Detectives from the Cambridge Police Criminal Investigation Section were on-scene and investigating as the email was sent at 1:06 a.m. Saturday, and police said “there is not believed to be any on-going public safety risk to the public at this time.”
Gun violence is rare in Cambridge, but the number of incidents this year is roughly on par with the number by this time in 2024 – six by July 3. There has been a greater human cost in the first half of this year, though: Angel Nieves, 21, was killed Jan. 13, and one person was injured in incidents Jan. 3 and March 27. Last year, by comparison, two people were nonfatally injured in a single gunfire incident.
In the city’s most recent previous gunfire incident, March 27 in The Port neighborhood near Central Square, sometime was shot in a leg.
Anyone with information about the Fourth of July incident can call detectives anonymously through a tip line at (617) 349-9151 or online at cambridgepolice.org/TIPS.
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Might have been good to have had CCTV cameras.