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.
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.
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 is a developing story and will be updated.
This story is part of a partnership between Cambridge Day and the Boston University Department of Journalism.
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