Overview
- The City Council voted to turn the gunshot‑detection system back on for a limited period while officials gather public input and evidence to decide its long-term use.
- Supporters including police unions and members of the victim’s family say the system can speed emergency response and help investigations, arguing its absence delayed aid to Xavier Bautista after he was shot on July 4.
- Opponents and civil‑liberties groups counter that ShotSpotter raises privacy concerns, produces false alerts, and may prompt over‑policing in low‑income and minority neighborhoods.
- The temporary order calls for a lottery‑selected, representative group of residents to review ShotSpotter’s accuracy, privacy safeguards, and neighborhood safety plans before a final policy is set.
- ShotSpotter, developed by SoundThinking, uses distributed acoustic sensors to locate gunfire and has been in Cambridge since 2014 but the company does not disclose exact sensor sites and the technology has faced national scrutiny and campaigns to ban it.