Boston City Council presses police commissioner on ShotSpotter contract, diversity gaps

BOSTON — May 13, 2024 — Boston City Council's Ways and Means Committee pressed Police Commissioner Michael Cox Monday over a pending ShotSpotter contract renewal, 547 department vacancies, and near-total absence of people of color in supervisory ranks. Cox defended the acoustic gunshot detection technology — now marketed as SoundThinking — as a life-saving tool and declined a direct request from Councilor Benjamin J. Weber to delay signing a new three-year agreement, saying he would "not be willing to delay a tool that will save lives." ACLU of Massachusetts technology staff member Kate Crawford testified that the department's legally required annual surveillance use reports, overdue by months under the city's own oversight ordinance, had still not been delivered to the council, and that the department had set a May 15 vendor-response deadline on its renewal RFP. The department's proposed FY25 budget carries approximately $349 million in permanent employee costs, projects $11 million in external grants, and shows a combined 547 open positions out of 3,162 full-time equivalents — including 253 sworn officer vacancies. Council President Ruthzee Louijeune and Councilor Julia M. Mejia pressed Cox on the department's two captains of color and zero Black female lieutenants; Cox acknowledged the shortfall but declined to commit to numerical targets, pointing instead to a 2024 recruit class that was 69 percent BIPOC and a command staff he said is 60 percent people of color.