Residents Call on City Leaders for Action After Fatal Cambridge Shooting

More than 100 residents and city employees gathered Wednesday for a heated discussion with city officials on the recent shooting of 32-year-old Xavier Bautista, a Cambridge Public Works department employee.

Bautista was found dead near the intersection of Broadway and Norfolk Streets Saturday morning shortly after 5:30 a.m. A preliminary investigation found that Bautista was shot nearly an hour before he was found by a passerby who called 911. An arrest has yet to be made in connection with the shooting.

City Manager Yi-An Huang ’05 said Bautista’s death is a grave reminder that Cambridge “is not a safe city today.”

“Every year we are confronted with times when we have failed, and that’s where we are today,” Huang said.

Bautista’s family and friends attended the meeting and called on the city to do everything it can to ensure he receives justice.

“My cousin also was killed a couple streets down from my house on the same day, 12 years ago,” said Victoria Angeles, Bautista’s sister.

“You will not stop hearing us about this case, because my cousin’s case, 12 years ago, was unsolved, and I’m not letting that happen to my brother,” Angeles added.

Casey Torres Angeles, Bautista’s cousin, said he believes city leaders’ discussions need to focus on neighborhoods which have seen higher rates of crime, like the Port.

“A part of me just feels like we talk about politics, we talk about everything. The underlying issue is to make it seem like we’re immune to this because we’re a big city,” Torres Angeles said.

Residents also scrutinized the Cambridge City Council’s May vote to disable ShotSpotter, a gunshot detection system. According to Cambridge’s police officer unions, one of the listening devices was placed close to where Bautista was found and could have led to a faster response time.

“The tragic shooting death of Cambridge city employee Xavier Bautista is compounded by the fact that there was no opportunity for the victim to receive emergency aid for approximately 60 minutes. This is directly related to the City Council’s mandate removing Shot Spotter technology from deployment in Cambridge,” Cosmo Macero, a union spokesperson, wrote Monday.

CPD fought to keep the technology — which detects loud noises and alerts police if they are determined to be possible gunfire — but ultimately, due to privacy and efficacy concerns, the Ccouncil moved to terminate its usage.

During Wednesday’s meeting, Huang said ShotSpotter makes it easier for responders to arrive at the scene sooner, even if the technology is not “perfect.”

“This is what I was most afraid of when we were thinking about technologies like license plate readers and technologies like ShotSpotter — these are not perfect technologies — but they provide the police with more tools and more opportunities,” Huang said.

In the wake of Bautista’s death and amid renewed scrutiny over the removal of ShotSpotter, Mayor Sumbul Siddiqui said the Council is weighing holding a special meeting during its summer recess to “further discuss the use of technology” and other broader issues.

Siddiqui did not provide additional detail on when a possible meeting would be held.

Residents also raised concerns about homicide cases that remain unsolved in Cambridge, and urged the city to ensure Bautista’s case does not become another.

In an interview after the meeting, Huang said he felt that the city’s support to victims’ families has fallen short in the past, but pledged to increase efforts in the aftermath of the shooting.

“These are holes that will never be filled,” Huang said. “We’re committed to being in relationship with people who are part of our community.”

Residents and city officials cautioned that, while devices like ShotSpotter and cameras could help police find a suspect in the shooting, the city should focus on preventing violence.

“We need to be prepared, and we need to be thoughtful, and we need to have prevention and intervention,” Councilor Timothy R. Flaherty said.

—Staff writer Shawn A. Boehmer can be reached at [email protected] and on Signal at shawnb.18. Follow him on X @ShawnBoehmer.