The ShotSpotter gunshot detection system didn’t detect the fatal shooting of William Woodworth on Friday by police, a police spokesperson said. The shooting occurred less than a week after the technology was turned back on.
The shooting occurred on Temple Street in Central Square, a quarter-mile from where Xavier Bautista was shot and killed July 4. Both locations are within ShotSpotter’s 1.25-square-mile coverage area.
“During the Aug. 21 incident on Temple Street, ShotSpotter did not generate an alert,” said Jennie Lopez, director of communications for Cambridge police, in a Thursday email.
The City Council voted in May to turn off the ShotSpotter technology, with a five-councillor majority citing a lack of evidence of its effectiveness and concerns about privacy and surveillance; ShotSpotter is paid for by a federal security grant.
At the time of Bautista’s shooting, the detection system was off. Councillors voted to restore it temporarily after Bautista’s killing, with police unions and some community members believing the detection system could have helped save his life.
The most frequent causes for ShotSpotter to fail to detect gunfire are when it is outside the coverage area; inside a building or vehicle; or during a holiday or event when loud noises such as fireworks are expected, according to a 2025 presentation from the Cambridge Police Department. None of those causes explains why the system did not detect Friday’s gunshots. Witnesses a block away reported clearly hearing at least five shots.
The district attorney’s office is conducting an investigation into the shooting, which took place after Woodworth pointed a loaded firearm at officers, police said.
The officers “attempted to physically disarm the individual and multiple shots were fired,” according to authorities’ preliminary findings.
A spokesperson for SoundThinking, the company that makes ShotSpotter, confirmed Thursday that the shooting “occurred in our recently reestablished coverage area” and that SoundThinking had supplied Cambridge police with a forensic report about the incident. The company referred further questions to local officials.
Woodworth, 64, of Watertown, had a history of mental health issues, The Boston Globe reported. A 2023 allegation of possession of a loaded, unlicensed firearm was dropped due to a warrantless search; a sister said Woodworth had guns because of “paranoia,” the paper reported.
“Whatever circumstances brought him into contact with Cambridge Police on Friday, the encounter should not have ended with his death,” said representatives of The Black Response in an email after the incident. The group was a leading member of the Stop ShotSpotter Coalition, which advocated before the council’s May vote for Cambridge to stop using the technology.
