A special meeting called by the City Council for Thursday will update the community on Cambridge’s “current, planned and recommended public safety and violence prevention work” since the July 4 killing of Xavier Bautista.
The meeting was foreshadowed at a July 8 community meeting about the death of Bautista. Attendees asked about the ShotSpotter gunfire-listening technology shut down in May by the council, and whether it could have saved Bautista’s life by bringing first responders to the scene faster. In response, mayor Sumbul Siddiqui said she was working to call the City Council back from its summer break to discuss the use of technology “with broader, other issues.”
The agenda for Thursday includes a package of recommendations made five months ago that includes hiring a full-time violence prevention coordinator and the launching of a violence prevention program within the Community Safety Department. Prominent at the July 8 meeting was Kwame Dance, a Cantabrigian who is the new assistant director for violence prevention in the Department of Community Safety.
“A lot of what what we envision for the Community Safety Department and for Kwame’s role is to be with you through not just this week, but over time to have the city be supporting families and victims of violence,” city manager Yi-An Huang said at the community meeting, in introducing Dance. “We really see that as part of our role as a community.”
A report in the packet by Niko Emack and Everett Dickerson also suggests antiviolence collaboration between Cambridge police and local organizations such as Roca, which does outreach to 16- to 24-year-olds who have survived traumatic events; and case management of people most likely to be involved in gun-related violence.
That case management would emphasize things such as workforce training and job placement; physical and emotional wellness; academic success; and services such as support for families and community members before and after traumatic events related to gun violence.
Bautista, 32, was a resident of The Port neighborhood with a fiancee and a child, and a Public Works employee for the city. He was shot at 4:30 a.m. Saturday by his home at Broadway and Norfolk Street. The body lay there until a 911 call alerted police at 5:26 a.m., police said. Scanner reports show first responders were on the scene just one minute later, but Bautista was dead when they arrived, and declared so at 5:33 a.m.
There’s been an arrest in his killing, with Rayquon Brown, 29, of Canton, named as a suspect. Officials say the arrested man is just one of several involved in the killing: Video shows Bautista being confronted by multiple men wearing masks who shot and killed him. A white Dodge Ram pickup truck fled the scene.
The special City Council meeting is 5:30 p.m. Thursday and will be televised on local access channel 22-CityView, and is watchable online and by Zoom videoconferencing.
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