Cambridge police issued a statement Monday evening that ShotSpotter has been reactivated. Police spokesperson Jennie Lopez said it was turned on for the Emergency Communications Center on Friday afternoon, and for the Cambridge Police Department on Monday morning.
The statement said the acoustic detection system covers all of the areas of the city it had covered prior to being shut down in May. In an earlier interview with Cambridge Day, Acting Police Commissioner Pauline Wells said police do not know the sensors’ exact locations.
A spokesperson for ShotSpotter’s maker, SoundThinking, said via email that customers define the coverage areas based on public safety needs and historical gunfire data. SoundThinking then determines exactly where to locate sensors to maximize the technology’s effectiveness, according to the spokesperson, Jerome Filip.
The process for turning back on Shotspotter included SoundThinking reinstalling hardware across the city. Software and hardware for the devices were updated and tested.
CPD started using ShotSpotter in June 2014 but in May of this year, the city council voted to end its use. In a special council meeting Aug. 10, councillors voted to reinstate the technology.
That vote came after backlash at a community meeting in July following the death of Xavier Bautista in a shooting July 4. Residents at the meeting said they had not been informed about the council’s decision to remove the technology and they disapproved of the move.
Residents who had been against the technology cited concerns surrounding privacy, the technology’s false positive rate and its potential to be used to overpolice Black and Brown neighborhoods.
ShotSpotter is provided by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and administered by multiple other agencies. The technology is paid for with funds from the Urban Area Security Initiative Grant Program run by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency and the Boston Office of Emergency Management, which acts as a fiduciary agency, meaning it holds the contract under which Cambridge has access to ShotSpotter.
The reintroduction of ShotSpotter for 90 days is supposed to be accompanied by a monitoring group, a civic assembly made up of community members. That body was not in place as of Friday and its status is not currently known. Cambridge Day has reached out to CPD for clarification.
This story was updated to include information from SoundThinking and the Cambridge Police Department.
This story is part of a partnership between Cambridge Day and the Boston University Department of Journalism.
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