Cambridge Day does not endorse candidates or positions. Views expressed in this column are those of the writers.
The killing of Xavier Bautista has shaken Cambridge communities, and as Cambridge residents we grieve alongside his family. Too many neighbors, particularly in Cambridge’s Black and brown communities, have experienced similar trauma from violence and feel abandoned and unheard.
In recent days, there has been speculation about whether the acoustic surveillance technology ShotSpotter could have helped Bautista, and whether the City Council should consider reinstating it.
We share the desire to find the best solutions to save lives and prevent violence, and that goal animates our opposition to ShotSpotter. The evidence clearly shows that ShotSpotter does not improve public safety or prevent gun violence. Cambridge residents in the Port and other neighborhoods that disproportionately experience violence deserve investments in public safety that have been proven to prevent violence and lift up communities that have faced ongoing disinvestment, rather than failed technology with real human costs.
Some have claimed the City Council acted without evidence when it voted to remove ShotSpotter from Cambridge, choosing “myths” over data. The opposite is true: The Council had reviewed years of testimony — including from directly affected community members — research, and legal analysis when it voted to stop using ShotSpotter.
Consider Chicago’s long-running, now-discontinued use of ShotSpotter, which has been subject to rigorous academic analysis. Contrary to claims that ShotSpotter gets officers to the scene faster, a University of Chicago analysis of response-time data found the opposite: in the Chicago neighborhoods that used to have ShotSpotter, police response times to high-priority calls got faster, not slower, after the system was removed — improving by roughly four minutes on average. The Chicago Police Department also reported 550 false negatives in 2023 — each one representing a time when ShotSpotter failed to alert despite active gunfire. In 2022, ShotSpotter also missed a Chicago shooting involving the discharge of 55 rounds. Finally, there is substantial research showing that when ShotSpotter was active, shootings and gun-related homicides in its coverage area did not decline.
In other words, ShotSpotter does not prevent violence. What’s more, case clearance rates — the rates at which police solve cases where gunshots were fired — did not improve in areas that used ShotSpotter. Leading researchers have determined ShotSpotter does not protect communities from violence. For these reasons, cities like New Bedford, Fall River, Atlanta, Durham, Portland, Ore. and Seattle have rejected ShotSpotter technology.
Closer to home, data from Cambridge indicates police have wasted precious resources chasing after alerts that led nowhere when ShotSpotter was active here.
A 2021 memo from Cambridge’s former police commissioner documented a 65% false positive rate over six years of ShotSpotter activity in Cambridge. More recently, city councilors cited a local 82% false positive rate. That means in an overwhelming majority of instances when ShotSpotter alerted Cambridge police, officers were deployed and found no evidence of gunfire. These figures are consistent with false positive elsewhere, including Dayton (95%), Chicago (89%, 90%), New York (82%), New Bedford (76%), Boston (70%) and Fall River (50%).
False alerts don’t just waste officer time and resources. They can pose a serious danger to community members, especially to young people. After all, police responding to a ShotSpotter alert are looking for a shooter. These high-stress, high-stakes situations can and do lead to real harm: wrongful arrests, racial profiling encounters with police and even police shootings of children.
Instead of turning to surveillance technology that evidence shows does not reduce violence, our policymakers and budget writers should redouble efforts to sustain and grow programs with proven results.
Among these proven solutions are:
- community violence interruption programs that put credible messengers in touch with the small number of people at highest risk of being involved with gun violence;
- stable, funded mental health care and trauma support, the kind that a strong Medicaid program and well-resourced nonprofits provide, not the kind that disappears when a grant cycle ends;
- investing in neighborhoods by improving vacant lots and refurbishing abandoned buildings;
- addressing food insecurity and preventing evictions;
- and sustaining funding for youth employment, reentry support after incarceration —including stipend-based therapy programs as a bridge to full employment — and housing stability.
These efforts will mean fewer conflicts ever reach the point of a gun being pulled.
The City Council didn’t arrive at its decision to reject ShotSpotter on a whim, nor did it prioritize privacy concerns over community safety. Like the many other communities that have in recent years ended their relationships with the company due to unreliability and a failure to deliver on public safety goals, the decision in Cambridge was made based on a robust factual record after years of hearings, community input, and research in response to a campaign led by and for affected community members. That’s exactly how it should work in a democracy.
Tragedy rightfully makes us reach for solutions. One death from gun violence is one too many. Every community in Cambridge, and in particular neighborhoods that disproportionately experience gun violence, deserves sustained community investment dedicated to ending gun violence — investment in people, in neighborhoods, in mental health and in the local organizations already doing the work block by block.
Gideon Epstein is Technology for Liberty Policy Counsel at the ACLU of Massachusetts. Katy Naples-Mitchell is Justice Policy Counsel at the ACLU of Massachusetts. Both are residents of Cambridge.
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This Cambridge resident wants data driven decision-making that will benefit Cambridge city residents.
Stating that there is no evidence to support gunfire is incorrect. There is no *additional* evidence. The Spot Shotter provided evidence that there was. Saying that simply because no physical evidence was found in addition to the initial evidence proves that the SpotShotters don’t work is an incorrect conclusion.
I agree with the premise in this opinion piece that Cambridge residents want jobs. That premise supports slowing the roll on bike lane buildout, due to the decreasing business revenue to the city corresponding with the implementation of these unwanted capital projects. Local businesses are documenting decreased patronage with the removal of parking proximate. Data driven decision-making would support a halt on bike lane buildout until utilization can be assessed in full 365 day evaluation, as well as actual impact on local businesses owned by neighbors and providing jobs for neighbors.
Let’s focus on getting that middle school paid off, providing public good services, getting the budget back below a BILLION dollars, and defer any new discretionary projects, especially those that residents actively do not want, to a future when we are making decisions based on data and not just emotion.
Thank you to the writers of this op-ed. I think they make lots of good points. The murder was a horrible act of violence, but the research says ShotSpotter would not have helped prevent it. I hope our city focuses on the kinds of long lasting effective community efforts that the op-ed mentions.
This op-ed evaluates ShotSpotter using the wrong metric. Judging ShotSpotter on whether it lowers crime is like judging an ambulance on whether it reduces car accidents. ShotSpotter is a reactive emergency response system, not a proactive crime-prevention strategy. By framing it primarily in terms of crime reduction, over-policing, and clearance rates, the authors miss its primary utility: a mechanical witness that can summon help when no one else does.
The Cambridge Police Department supports ShotSpotter, but the City Council does not. Hmmm. It would seem to me that the police are in a better position to make the call on this. Also, no mention here that there have been at least 11 verified incidents of gun violence in Cambridge over a ten-year period where ShotSpotter successfully alerted police but no one called 911!
We have one of the greatest police departments in the country! Why do people with no knowledge of law enforcement especially democrats think they are more knowledgeable! Can you imagine using Chicago has an example! The City Councilors who voted against ShotSpotter should resign! They may have cost Bautista his life! Every citizen of Cambridge should feel safe, and we should use every tool available!!
Shotspotter remains a flawed system and one that does more harm than good. It is inaccurate and has NOT lead to an increase in arrests or convictions of shooters, nor has it helped increase police response times to events. Those who are clinging to it are either mislead by propaganda on the Federal level that seeks to turn ALL the country into a police state under an oligarchy.
An arrest was made in the Bautista shooting situation, without the technology, thru proper police work and effort. That arrest should lead to the rest of those involved and should prove a chain of discovery as why the crime happened (which is important, for example if Bautista was the witness to something they were doing that they wanted to silence knowing what that was and why it was worth a murder is important as it could be something larger… remember the shooter was NOT a member of our community).
The Police and Police Union may have alternative motives for their support of the technology besides public safety or their own safety. It is well known that the company behind the technology has shady connections in regards to who and what invests in it. An investigation of whether the Union or Police retirement plan etc. is involved with the company should be examined on a state AG level.
Follow the Money, find who benefits. They have been found in other states, according to investigative reporting, to have specific unions invested in the company and also grants being issued by the company to police related organizations.
Protect the future and the unity of the community. Invest in building up the community, not selling it out to corporation and oligarchs.