Cambridge residents demanded that city officials be accountable and improve public safety in the Port neighborhood following the shooting of Xavier Bautista, a Cambridge resident and Department of Public Works employee, at a July 8 meeting.
Over 200 attendees packed into a meeting room in the Cambridge Senior Center. The meeting started with brief remarks from Cambridge Mayor Simbul Siddiqui, Acting Police Commissioner Pauline Wells, Middlesex District Attorney Marian T. Ryan, and City Manager Yi-An Huang. These were followed by two hours of questions, moderated by Mo Barbosa, senior director of Health Resources in Action, a nonprofit that works on addressing violence and other community issues in Cambridge.
In addition to Siddiqui, six other city council members attended: Ayah Al-Zubi, Timothy Flaherty, Marc McGovern, E. Denise Simmons, Jivan Sobrino-Wheeler and Cathie Zusy.
More than half the residents in attendance questioned the City Council’s decision to remove ShotSpotter, an automated gunshot detection technology. They asked why residents of The Port neighborhood, where the shooting took place, were not consulted. And they demanded city officials share specific plans to reduce future crime.
Bautista’s family members shared their frustration with what they saw as city officials’ lack of action and failure to acknowledge the reality of danger in the Port. A majority of the community members in attendance, including Bautista’s family, expressed anger and disappointment with city officials.
Denise Cosby, also a resident of The Port, said she does not feel safe in Cambridge and advocated for the deployment of cameras around the city. “Cambridge is not a safe city,” Cosby said. “It is a scary city.”
Safety claims draw outcry
When Ryan and Huang separately emphasized Cambridge is a safe city — “I would echo what the DA has said, that Cambridge is a safe community,” Huang said — it sparked an outcry from residents. Huang acknowledged that “we also see these things happen, and I think what I would say is the conversation that we have been having at the city council is that we need to address the violence in our community.”
Councillor Simmons, who is from The Port and was one of two councillors who voted to retain ShotSpotter in May, criticized the characterization of Cambridge as “safe,” along with members of Bautista’s family. “I respect what you said, but when you say the city is safer, just say maybe for you, but not for Black and brown people,” said Simmons.
Murder is rare in Cambridge, but its overall rates of violent crime and especially property-related crime are higher than average for cities in Massachusetts, according to the Cambridge Police Department’s 2024 report. The Port is one of the most dangerous areas of the city, along with Riverside and North Cambridge.
Flaherty, who also voted against the resolution to remove ShotSpotter technology, affirmed that “public safety is not a political issue.”
“We need to be prepared, and we need to be thoughtful, and we need to have prevention and intervention like we have in other communities,” Flaherty said.
ShotSpotter process questioned
Multiple city officials, including Simmons, Flaherty, Huang and Wells, backed ShotSpotter as a useful tool for public safety and called for its reinstatement.
Residents urged the city to listen to Black and brown voices within the area. Richard Harding, a member of the School Committee and vice president of the Cambridge chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), said the decision to stop using ShotSpotter was “void of representation of Black and brown people.”
Harding, who was born and raised in The Port, said the community did not have a problem with the ShotSpotter technology. He asked that the council investigate bringing back ShotSpotter, include the Port in conversations around the technology and continue to support and engage with Bautista’s family.
Safety first
Dennis Benzan, a former city council member and resident of the Port, urged the city to prioritize safety above all.
“My hope is that you take a look at the policy around SpotShotter, you take a look at the technology, but you also give law enforcement, and everybody in the back, the tools necessary to solve crimes,” Benzan said, referring to the many police officers present at the meeting. “If there’s one thing I want us all to walk away from here, all of us have to push the policymakers [to understand] that privacy is important, but our safety is more important.”
Siddiqui said the council would consider calling an emergency meeting in response to Bautista’s death and community feedback. Kwame Dance, the assistant director of Cambridge’s violence prevention program, also promised to hold future community discussions.
After the meeting, Bautista’s family and friends led a walk toward his memorial at Sennott Park. A GoFundMe created to support his partner and their son in covering memorial costs has raised more than $19,000, three-quarters of the way to its $25,900 goal.
This story is part of a partnership between Cambridge Day, the Boston University Department of Journalism and the Georgetown University Journalism program.
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Very disappointed this article did not quote Xaviers sister Victoria and his cousin Casey who grew up with Xavier. The passionate testimony to the disparate cambridge life experiences was informative on so many issues involved. They spoke so honestly and courageously about how they see crime violence and life so differently than folks in other neighborhoods. Raquel and Xaviers Fiance and his son’s mom were amazing. All left out