Here’s a grim fact for you: more black people were murdered during BLM riots than unarmed black people were shot by police. In other words, the very motivation for BLM is less deadly to black people than BLM itself.
As always, though, facts are kryptonite to lefty race-baiting activists. Look how quickly BLM pivoted from ‘We need police bodycams to record their brutality to black people’, to, ‘Oh, shit, bodycams are racist because they show everyone how black people actually behave.’ Statistics are an even more fraught ground for race activists. The infamous ‘13=52’ equation, for instance (13 per cent of the population, 52 per cent of the crime).
Never, though, underestimate a race-baiter’s ability to spin anything and everything into a ‘racism’ narrative. Case in point: race activists force the end of a law enforcement tool designed to enable rapid response to shooting incidents. Within two weeks, the same race activists erupt in “sadness, fear and rage” when a brown man is shot and left to lie undiscovered for over an hour.
The Cambridge City Council voted Monday to end the use of ShotSpotter devices throughout the city. The vote comes after years of debate over the benefits and potential risks associated with the technology, which listens for gunshots and quickly alerts the police if any are detected.
The excuse peddled by this bastion of progressive lunacy is so-called ‘over-policing’. As if police don’t just go where the crimes are.
But you’ll be no doubt shocked, shocked, to learn who was behind it.
ShotSpotter became a political flashpoint in 2024, when lawmakers such as Sens Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren pushed for an investigation into the technology due to concerns about over-policing and potential civil rights violations […]
Councilor Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler, another cosponsor of the resolution, said that ShotSpotter makes Cambridge less safe.
Yeah, about that…
Sadness, fear, and rage echoed in a packed Cambridge community meeting days after Xavier Bautista was shot and killed on the Fourth of July. The beloved DPW worker lay in the street for an hour before a pedestrian finally found him and called 911 around 5:30 a.m.
The frustrated victim’s family and community members came with questions about their public safety and why gunshot detection sensors were shut down just months before the deadly shooting.
Then reality, as it so often does, delivered a savage lesson. Sadly and predictably, to the innocent.
With nary a blush of shame, suddenly the same activists who cheered the removal of ShotSpotter were demanding answers about why help took so long.
Another concern raised is whether the city council’s decision to stop using gunshot detection technology in May impacted response time. There used to be ShotSpotter coverage where the 32-year-old was found but it was deactivated.
The police commissioner admitted the technology would have helped. “We can never be sure, but I think we would have been in a better position,” said Commissioner Pauline Wells.
Of course it would have. That was the entire point of ShotSpotter. But in the clown world of progressive governance, tools that actually help solve and deter gun crime must be sacrificed on the altar of ‘equity’ and ‘anti-racism’. The same people who spent years screaming about black bodies and police brutality suddenly discover that rapid response to gunfire matters
“I understand that our policies have real life consequences,” said Councilor Tim Flaherty. “The decisions that we make on the council impact the lives of the people in this room. I want you to know that I recognize and understand that.”
Spare us the self-serving crocodile tears. Cambridge’s councillors, safely insulated in their leafy progressive bubble, didn’t care about the data showing ShotSpotter’s utility in locating gunfire without a 911 call. They cared about the narrative. Now a working man lies dead.
Cambridge’s hasty special meeting on technology and public safety is pure damage control. The councillors who voted to disarm police of a proven tool now pretend to listen. But the damage is done. Another life cut short, another community traumatised and another reminder that race-baiting activism doesn’t save black or brown lives: it endangers them.
The left’s war on effective policing isn’t compassionate. It’s lethal. Xavier Bautista deserved better. So do the citizens of Cambridge who are now paying the price for their leaders’ delusions.
