Cambridge public officials and city departments are organizing a series of community meetings and discussions in the wake of Monday’s shooting incident on Memorial Drive.
The first will be a community drop-in event from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. today at Riverside Pizza and Seafood, 305 River Street, hosted by Cambridge Mayor Sumbul Siddiqui and State Rep. Marjorie Decker, with support from the Cambridge Public Health department. The event is meant to offer a “safe, supportive space” for members of the community to gather and find resources to help them with trauma they may have experienced because of the incident.
Siddiqui said in an email to Cambridge Day that she had been hearing from constituents asking about how the city would respond, outside of the law enforcement response.
“The details of the incident remain with law enforcement, but my focus is on making sure that the community has space to ask questions and be heard, and that resources are being shared with those who may need them. My office is always open for this, but it’s important to go to the community rather than waiting for them to come to us, especially during times of fear,” Siddiqui’s statement said.
Siddiqui is also working on organizing another community event, with details not yet set.
Gun violence: a public health crisis
“People are just shocked and upset. I think there’s a little bit of numbing, as well,” said State Rep. Marjorie Decker in an interview. “It’s hard to believe that actually happened. And I think at the same time we have become conditioned to the idea that something will happen in this country.”
Decker has sponsored a number of pieces of gun-related legislation in Massachusetts and is also the state legislature’s House Chair of the Joint Committee on Public Health. She said gun violence is an epidemic-level public health crisis, referencing a shooting in Dorchester on Sunday night.
She asked residents to pay attention to their emotions for the next several weeks. “It sometimes takes days or weeks for people to really feel” what they’ve experienced, she said, adding that people who were not at the scene can also feel traumatized. She encouraged people who find themselves feeling anxious should reach out for support, “whether that’s a provider or a trusted family friend,” she said. She noted that resources are available through her office and through a number of area nonprofits and health organizations.
The Cambridge Police Department and the Cambridge Public Health Department will said it will hold a community outreach event Tuesday, May 19, at the Cambridge Community Center, 5 Callendar St., from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
“We know it was probably a traumatic event” for people in and near that building, said Sgt. Robert Reardon, a Cambridge police spokesperson. He added “this is a pretty significant event, and we hope it never happens again.”
One victim released from hospital; shooter arraigned
Monday’s incident saw Tyler Brown, a 46-year-old Boston resident, fire more than 50 rounds from an illegal assault-style rifle at cars and passers-by, injuring two people. Brown who had been released from McLean Hospital, a psychiatric facility, three days earlier, was also wounded during an exchange of gunfire with a Massachusetts State Trooper responding to the scene and a marine veteran who was driving on Memorial Drive at the time of the shootings.
Traffic was disrupted for some eight hours at one of Cambridge’s busiest intersections. And hundreds of residents, many of them witnesses, shared their experience on social media, in traditional media and in conversation.
One of the gunshot victims was released from the hospital on Wednesday. The other victim, identified in the Boston Globe as Cambridge resident Casimir Bangoura, remains hospitalized but is expected to survive.
On Thursday, Brown was arraigned from his hospital bed by the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office. Through his public defenders, Brown pleaded not guilty to six felony charges and two misdemeanors. A story in the Boston Globe reported that Brown did not speak and appeared “heavily sedated.”
Some material in this story previously appeared in the May 14, 2026 print edition of Cambridge Day.
This story was updated to correct and clarify details for a community gathering on Tuesday, May 19, at the Cambridge Community Center.
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