Forty people in Cambridge have been selected to participate in a group that will advise the City Council on the use of surveillance technology, including the gunshot detection tech ShotSpotter.
The civic assembly will be the first of its kind in Cambridge and will also look into video surveillance in public parks. The group was chosen via a lottery earlier this week and includes a mix of participants across demographics like gender, race, age and neighborhood. Half of the panel includes people with direct, familial or community-level experience with gun violence.
The hope is that the assembly will offer a better representation of the city’s diversity to give the council feedback on complex subjects.
“For an issue like this, when you’re talking about surveillance and ShotSpotter and gun activity and safety, we really wanted to make sure that the people participating in that discussion represented the people who live in our city,” said city councilor Marc McGovern.
“And that’s not always the case when you just have a public safety meeting at two o’clock in the afternoon,” he continued. “You know, there’s only certain folks [that] can show up to that, right? And it’s typically not representative of the diversity of the city.”
The group will be tasked with helping guide Cambridge through what’s been a hot-button issue of late. In August, the City Council voted to temporarily reverse course from a decision earlier this year to part ways with ShotSpotter.
The decision to stop using the technology was based on activists who argued it was invasive and ineffective at stopping crime. But the reversal came after 32-year-old city employee Xavier Bautista was shot and killed in July and Cambridge police saying his life might have been saved if ShotSpotter had been active at the time.
Over the course of four Saturdays between this month and December, the group will gather to learn from experts and develop recommendations. McGovern said the goal is to have recommendations by the end of the calendar year.
Cambridge Mayor Sumbul Siddiqui called it a “historic day” when the lottery took place earlier this week.
“This is the first municipal civic assembly process in Massachusetts and one of the first in the country. That alone is worth celebrating,” she said. “But what truly makes tonight really meaningful is the commitment of our community to show up, to participate and imagine together what thoughtful, inclusive policy-making can look like.”
Jeremy Warnick, director of media relations and content strategy for the City of Cambridge, says feedback from the community has been strong and that they had over 400 people apply for the lottery.
Now, Cambridge is looking to lead by example for others.
“Ultimately, at the end of the day, we do have a toolkit that we could potentially provide for others that are looking to explore a similar approach,” Warnick said. “Whether it’s here in Cambridge or beyond.”
Source: www.wgbh.org
