Harsh remarks toward fellow city councillors sidelined a vote Monday on whether Cambridge keeps the gunfire-detection technology known as ShotSpotter.
A policy order by councillor Ayah Al-Zubi called for the city to drop the tech,“including turning off and physically removing the surveillance tools no later than 90 days” and ensuring whatever data it collected stays with the city. In response, councillor E. Denise Simmons spoke at length about why she found the proposal objectionable – despite saying she was originally inclined to support it.
“Although I do appreciate my colleagues’ advocacy and enthusiasm, the sense of performative ally-ism and saviorism of marginalized people – that also rang out,” Simmons said.
Simmons added that Al-Zubi’s process in pursuing the order, which is co-sponsored by councillors Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler, Marc McGovern and Patty Nolan and resulted from two committee hearings, lacked input by Black and brown people. “It’s not that I’m a ShotSpotter enthusiast. It’s just I feel that the process is exclusive, that it infantilizes a group of people – which may not be your intention, but just because you didn’t mean to run somebody’s foot over doesn’t mean they’re less hurt.”
Simmons is Black. Al-Zubi is a Muslim who was born in Jordan, and Sobrinho-Wheeler’s father was from from Goa, India. Testimony during public comment included Carlos Humberto David, whose brother was killed by gun violence in Cambridge in 2014, who wanted to keep ShotSpotter, and Stephanie Guirand of The Black Response, an organization that opposes the devices and helped organize Al-Zubi’s hearings.
Some Black community members who were present and spoke during public comment were concerned with issues aside from ShotSpotter and didn’t give opinions on it.
Black and brown
Along with saying the service violates the city’s antisurveillance ordinance, Al-Zubi’s policy order includes a paragraph citing ShotSpotter harms including its expense and that it “exacerbates the overpolicing of Black and brown communities,” which are home to many of the placements for the city’s 29 listening devices.
The discussion came several hours after a gun battle on Memorial Drive in Cambridge, where a parolee in emotional distress brought an assault-style rifle and fired 50 to 60 rounds before being felled by State Police and an ex-Marine caught in the attack. ShotSpotter did not hear the gunfire because that part of the city is “outside of the coverage area,” acting police commissioner Pauline Wells told councillors.
The reference to Black and brown communities was upsetting, Simmons said. “I have found this very divisive, very divisive. And the worst, it’s dismissive, and I know that’s not your intention, but that’s how people feel when you say ‘I’m here for Black and brown people.’ Ain’t no Black and brown people in the audience, or hardly – I apologize to the Black and brown people that here,” Simmons said. “I want you to walk in my shoes for a moment. Has anybody here had their son shot down the street? Anybody? Have you had your son shot down the street? I have. So I’m coming from that place. This is where you’ve lost me.”
Simmons said she was getting “texts from people saying ‘I’ve never felt so disrespected.’”
Another evening is due
A common move among councillors who dislike proposed orders is to use a “charter right” to shut down debate until the next meeting. Simmons said she wouldn’t exercise her charter right on this order “because I couldn’t sit through another evening of this.”
Vice mayor Burhan Azeem, who is of South Asian descent, did it for her, noting that with the shooting that afternoon, “emotions are running a little high.”
“I just wanted to give us a week to lower the temperature and reflect, and I think we’ll have a really good discussion about this next week,” Azeem said.
The exchanges weren’t quite done, though.
During discussion of whether the council should explore the propriety of “foreign policy” orders, raised in a policy order that Simmons co-sponsored, Al-Zubi charged that it “seems a bit hypocritical.” The order came about because of one proposed last week by Sobrinho-Wheeler about opposing the federal government’s strangling of Cuba through economic penalties.
“In one breath, my colleague assumes performatism of marginalized struggles, and then in another proceeds to what I think is an attempt to silence marginalized people when it comes to other struggles,” Al-Zubi said.
Hearing from residents
During public comment, speakers cited the technology serving as potential spying tools because the microphones are always on and listen at long distances; and pointed to reports of an 82 percent false-positive rate. Guirand spoke of both during her time at the microphone.
David said he wanted to keep ShotSpotter in Cambridge “not because I blindly support surveillance,” but because his firsthand brush with gun violence and death has gone unhealed. Violence in neighborhoods such as The Port and Central Square have inspired residents to ask for cameras despite the council’s generally antisurveillance stance.
“There were people present, there were witnesses, and despite investigation, nobody was ever arrested for his murder. That leaves a permanent wound on my family and a community,” David said of his brother’s killing. “You never stop wondering if things could have been different if something could have helped police respond faster.”
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