Cambridge to implement body cameras, other changes following shooting death of Sayed Faisal

More than a month after a Cambridge officer fatally shot Sayed Faisal, the Cambridge city manager announced a number of commitments to change, including the implementation of body cameras and the use of responses besides the police for emergency calls.

Still, the officer who shot Faisal is not being named, and the Cambridge police say that they have not "identified any egregious misconduct or significant policy, training, equipment, or disciplinary violations" in the case so far.

Faisal was shot and killed by Cambridge police on Jan. 4 after they say he approached them with a knife. An officer reportedly discharged a less-than-lethal sponge round, but that was unsuccessful in stopping Faisal. According to police, an officer then shot and killed Faisal.

The incident has sparked protests and outcry for change in Cambridge, something Cambridge City Manager Yi-An Huang acknowledged in his update, which was released late Tuesday night. He said the city’s actions come from the City Council, which hosted hours of community meetings and produced a set of recommendations. The city did not immediately offer a timeline for its changes.

"We will implement body cameras. We will use alternative responses to emergency calls outside of the police department. We will evaluate additional less lethal options," he wrote. "We will deliver a procedural justice dashboard. We will hire a credible, independent consultant to review and make recommendations across our police department’s training, policies, and practices and the full report will be made public. We will seek to strengthen the City’s mental health resources and enhance our outreach to underserved communities. And we will continue to be in dialogue with the Council and the community on how we can keep improving."

Part of the community response has been a call to release the name of the officer who shot Faisal. But that doesn't appear to be likely to happen soon, if ever.

"In cases with clear and egregious misconduct, as in the recent case in Memphis, we would take immediate action. But I hope that we can recognize that our police officers sometimes face complex, difficult, and dangerous situations — and that there are cases where we can’t make an immediate judgment. In most investigations, suspects' names are not released to the public until there is a high probability of criminal charges," Huang wrote. "That right to privacy during an investigation is also a fair standard for our officers. While I understand the call for blanket transparency in all fatal police shootings, I believe that making a determination based on each case is reasonable."

Huang wrote that the police department has not identified significant violations and that the city is prepared to re-assess based on additional evidence that emerges from the District Attorney’s independent investigation.

Cambridge Mayor Sumbul Siddiqui has said she supports the name being released but that that decision lies with Huang under the city’s governance.

In a separate update from Cambridge Police Tuesday, Commissioner Christine Elow wrote that the officer involved, who is on paid administrative leave, hasn't had any complaints filed against them over the course of their seven-year career with the department. The department, she said, will conclude its internal review process when the Middlesex District Attorney's Office issues the findings of its own investigation.

Fatema Ahmad, executive director of the Muslim Justice League, has been active in the protests following Faisal's shooting. She said that the recommendations from the city don't solve the greater problem at hand.

"We know that body cameras don't stop police from killing people. And, in fact, there have been so many really obvious cases of that around the country lately," she said. "We know that the police already have many lethal and less lethal weapons available, and we've also seen less lethal weapons like Tasers kill multiple people just since the start of 2023. So it's really concerning to me that they are putting out supposed recommendations that really avoid the root cause of the problem here."

While Ahmad supports alternatives to police response, she said the city's commitment is too vague, saying that it’s not clear what will be funded: a new team formed by the city, or an existing community-led response team known as Cambridge HEART.

"So it's really unclear which one they will actually put support into," she said. "And it's also not clear, you know, they've said multiple times that in any case like this where there is something deemed a weapon, they are going to send the police. So even if they're supporting alternative response for some things, it's still not clear would they have actually allowed that to happen here."