Speaker 1: It's Night Side with Dan Ray. I'm WBSY constant some
Speaker 1: news radio.
Speaker 2: I am indeed Ben Parker, and I am indeed filling
Speaker 2: in for Dan Ray on Night's Side this evening. It's
Speaker 2: a one and done. Tonight's the only night. So if
Speaker 2: you like what you're here, then I guess write the management.
Speaker 2: If you don't like what you're here, well, at the
Speaker 2: end of the night, it'll be over. I wanted to
Speaker 2: bring one more thing up real quickly before we move
Speaker 2: on here, and I didn't get to it with Senator
Speaker 2: Oberaker from New York. I spoke to someone earlier today.
Speaker 2: But I've also brought this up many times before when
Speaker 2: it comes to politics and getting things done right, we're
Speaker 2: in this stalemate sometimes and obviously a society where there's
Speaker 2: just a lot of anger between people on one side
Speaker 2: of the aisle and the other side of the aisle,
Speaker 2: and there's lightning Rod issues says, I'll call them, and
Speaker 2: I'm not going to just list them off. You know
Speaker 2: what they are? The ones who are people really get
Speaker 2: upset about them. I wonder why, and I'm sure there's
Speaker 2: a reason, and somebody may bring it up later as
Speaker 2: we go through the evening or as we talk to
Speaker 2: other people tonight. But this is what I always wondered. Look,
Speaker 2: there's plenty of stuff we don't agree on. That's known.
Speaker 2: But there's stuff that we can't agree on, right whether
Speaker 2: it has to do with taxes or helping people or
Speaker 2: this that or the other thing, it doesn't matter what
Speaker 2: it is. But there's a lot of stuff that we
Speaker 2: can agree on. Leave the nasty stuff, the lightning rod
Speaker 2: issues off to the side. I'm not saying ignore them,
Speaker 2: but leave them off to the side. Solve the problems
Speaker 2: we can find solutions to easily, or at least easier,
Speaker 2: and then maybe in the time that we're negotiating about
Speaker 2: the things we can find agreement with, maybe we find
Speaker 2: ways to agree or understand the other side for those
Speaker 2: other issues they really anger causing issues. All Right, That's
Speaker 2: all I want to say. I just why do we
Speaker 2: have to put everything in the freezer and say, well,
Speaker 2: I'm not going to talk to you about this, so
Speaker 2: I'm not going to talk you about anything. I just
Speaker 2: and it can happens from both sides, so it's I'm
Speaker 2: not picking on anybody specifically, but I just let's solve
Speaker 2: the things we can solve, and then we can move
Speaker 2: on to the things we didn't solve in the first place.
Speaker 2: Never mind nine oh nine. It is Tuesday night, Ben
Speaker 2: Parker filling in for Dan Ray on nights side. We're
Speaker 2: gonna switch gears up a little bit here. There was
Speaker 2: some legislation about a curbing housing affordability or taking control
Speaker 2: of housing affordability. Everybody knows, and it's a deal in
Speaker 2: every state right around here, Sure there's a more expensive housing.
Speaker 2: So the problem with housing is a lot bigger of
Speaker 2: a problem in and around Boston. Let's say in New York.
Speaker 2: I would guess in San Francisco. You just named the
Speaker 2: places where it's the most expensive. Right, But the governor
Speaker 2: Heally today signed a borrowing bill, a five point two
Speaker 2: billion dollar borrowing bill that was passed by the legislature
Speaker 2: and is aimed at trying to put an end, or
Speaker 2: at least slow down the problems with housing in the Commonwealth.
Speaker 2: So we are talking to someone who knows a little
Speaker 2: bit about housing. Let me see if I can say
Speaker 2: this all in one breath. Massachusetts Housing and Livable Communities
Speaker 2: Secretary at Augustus joins us. Can I just call you
Speaker 2: the housing secretaries Okay.
Speaker 3: Oh, I've been called worth feel free, all right.
Speaker 2: So this is something that the governor wanted, the legislature
Speaker 2: had tossed around, and obviously, as with anything, there was
Speaker 2: a bit of back and forth and over and under
Speaker 2: and all of that. But finally the deal got done.
Speaker 2: And so now it's done. Now to the layman who's
Speaker 2: not Housing secretary, what does this mean to the commonwealth?
Speaker 2: And and I guess maybe even more importantly is what
Speaker 2: will it mean to the commonwealth?
Speaker 3: Well, first, thanks for having me, Ben, I appreciate it.
Speaker 3: It is a big day in terms of housing production
Speaker 3: in Massachusetts by having Governor Haley signed the Affordable Homes
Speaker 3: Act today. There's kind of two elements to it. As
Speaker 3: you mentioned, this five point two billion dollars worth of
Speaker 3: borrowing that will happen over the next five years, and
Speaker 3: that really supports most of the capital programs that we
Speaker 3: use to build affordable housing, subsidize the building of affordable housing,
Speaker 3: or capital improvements to our public housing. This is one
Speaker 3: of the only states that has forty three thousand units
Speaker 3: of state owned public housing. That's across two hundred and
Speaker 3: forty one cities and towns of Massachusetts. Some of it
Speaker 3: is for elderly and disabled folks, some of it is
Speaker 3: for families, all of it is for folks who are
Speaker 3: often very low income, sometimes even below thirty percent of
Speaker 3: area median income, so very very low income folks who
Speaker 3: in this housing market, if we didn't have those public
Speaker 3: housing units online, many of them would probably be experiencing homelessness.
Speaker 3: So we really want to make sure we preserve the
Speaker 3: public housing that we currently have and make it more habitable,
Speaker 3: more healthy, more updated, and make sure we keep that online.
Speaker 3: And then there are forty nine policy changes that are
Speaker 3: part of this bill, some of which accessory dwelling units.
Speaker 3: They call them in law apartments sometimes where if you're
Speaker 3: single family property owner, you now as of right, can
Speaker 3: add a basement apartment and an attict department above your garage,
Speaker 3: and sometimes it's a family member that lives there, and
Speaker 3: sometimes you just rented out to bring in a little
Speaker 3: extra income. Other states have done that. It's created thousands
Speaker 3: of units at no cost to the state, and so
Speaker 3: that was part of the bill that the governors signed today.
Speaker 3: So is a combination of dollars as well as policy changes.
Speaker 3: The net goal is about forty five thousand units of
Speaker 3: housing will be built over the next five years that
Speaker 3: otherwise wouldn't be built, and about twenty seven thousand units
Speaker 3: of housing will be preserved or improved that otherwise might
Speaker 3: have been in Jeopany.
Speaker 2: Now this is a bond bill, at least a portion
Speaker 2: of it. There is this bond bill, So we're basically
Speaker 2: taking a mortgage to help with housing costs.
Speaker 3: Every five years forever the Borrows reauthorizes capital programs. We
Speaker 3: do it for environmental things, we do it for education,
Speaker 3: school buildings, higher education, dams and bridges, and we do
Speaker 3: it for housing. And so the five year cycle was up.
Speaker 3: This is the biggest authorization the governor file the four
Speaker 3: point one billion dollar bills that legislature added to it.
Speaker 3: I think understanding the crisis that we're experiencing across the state.
Speaker 3: Anybody who's tried to buy a first time anybody that
Speaker 3: you know who's a first time home buyer probably tells
Speaker 3: you that they've gone to many open houses and come
Speaker 3: up short. They've put in offers, often over asking, sometimes
Speaker 3: waving home inspections and all sorts of things just to
Speaker 3: try to get that opportunity to purchase a home and
Speaker 3: still aren't able to do it because of the shortage
Speaker 3: of inventory, and so this bill was really designed to
Speaker 3: create more supply. We know it's basically if you're oil
Speaker 3: it all down. It's a supply demand issue. There's too
Speaker 3: few units of housing, rental or ownership opportunities for the
Speaker 3: demand that's up there.
Speaker 2: There's certainly let's to unpacked with this at Augustus, who's
Speaker 2: the Housing Secretary of Massachusetts, joining us about this bill
Speaker 2: signed by the governor today, And you mentioned supplying demand,
Speaker 2: And obviously I think anybody who even took basic economics
Speaker 2: knows what supply and demand is and means. This is
Speaker 2: a question that I'm going to ask because because I'm
Speaker 2: curious about it. If you have more supply, then the
Speaker 2: price of the goes down. People go So if you
Speaker 2: have as we sit right now, right housing prices are
Speaker 2: very high. And Mary and Joanne or Mary and Joe
Speaker 2: and Mary and Mark all just bought houses at the
Speaker 2: high end of the market here right, so six seven,
Speaker 2: eight hundred thousand dollars whatever they bought the house for. Now,
Speaker 2: if more supply comes online, then theoretically the prices will
Speaker 2: go down. Those couples And what do you say, I
Speaker 2: guess to someone who says, who wait, wait a second,
Speaker 2: there's more supply now than these when I bought. Now,
Speaker 2: I'm going to get I'm gonna get stuck on the
Speaker 2: other end of my mortgage. Is that something that people
Speaker 2: should worry about or is that just not something that
Speaker 2: is going to really be a big problem.
Speaker 3: I honestly don't think that's going to be a big problem.
Speaker 3: Maybe prices don't go up as fast as they've been
Speaker 3: going up. But if any of those folks that you
Speaker 3: talked about purchase the house and then they go to
Speaker 3: sell it twenty or thirty years later, I'm sure that
Speaker 3: house will appreciate in value and they will have built
Speaker 3: up quite a bit of equity over the course of
Speaker 3: those twenty or thirty years they own the home. The
Speaker 3: question is, can you know, the kid who's graduating from
Speaker 3: college today in Massachusetts, can they afford to buy a home?
Speaker 3: And if they can't, we're finding we're losing people to
Speaker 3: other states. You know, we lost about twenty thousand popular
Speaker 3: over the last few years, most of the twenty five
Speaker 3: to thirty six year old demographic. Those are the folks
Speaker 3: who are just getting out of school, starting their careers,
Speaker 3: starting their families and quite honestly, are finding themselves priced
Speaker 3: out of the real estate market in the greater Boston
Speaker 3: area and even beyond, And so we're not going to
Speaker 3: be able to compete as a state as the companies
Speaker 3: and businesses that look to locate here to grow here
Speaker 3: look for employees, and if they say to their employees, hey,
Speaker 3: you're going to have to spend fifty percent of your
Speaker 3: income on housing, but if you take a job in
Speaker 3: North Carolina or somewhere else, you're going to spend thirty percent.
Speaker 3: Too often we're losing those talented workforce and that makes
Speaker 3: us less competitive as a state. Not to mention people
Speaker 3: who are on the other end of the economic equation.
Speaker 3: You know, senior citizens who are on fixed incomes. Maybe
Speaker 3: they rent, maybe they're in a three family, three family
Speaker 3: gets sold. Somebody says, hey, I can get way more
Speaker 3: than fifteen hundred dollars a month. It's now twenty four
Speaker 3: hundred dollars a month, but you're living on a fixed income.
Speaker 3: We're seeing a lot of senior citizens be displaced because
Speaker 3: of the really rapid increases in housing costs. So I
Speaker 3: think we can create more supply that gives more power
Speaker 3: to the buyer and to the renter and takes a
Speaker 3: little bit more of the power dynamic that's currently in
Speaker 3: place in our housing ecosystem and create a little more
Speaker 3: equilibrium so that if somebody is offering a property rental
Speaker 3: or sale that's way too high, there's somebody down the
Speaker 3: road that you can take your business to. Right now,
Speaker 3: there's nobody down the road to take your business too.
Speaker 3: That's the problem.
Speaker 2: Massachusetts Housing Secretary at Augustus joining us. So the Governor
Speaker 2: today signing a bill to help with housing issues in
Speaker 2: the Commonwealth, will continue to talk about that and ask
Speaker 2: some more questions about what this means for you and
Speaker 2: me and everyone else involved as we continue on nights Side.
Speaker 2: Ben Parker's sitting in for Dan Ray tonight on WBZ.
Speaker 1: Now. Back to Dan Ray live from the Window World
Speaker 1: Night Side Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 4: This is all about unlocking housing right because everywhere we go,
Speaker 4: people are paying too much, or they can't afford rent,
Speaker 4: they can't afford a down payment, seniors can't afford to downsize.
Speaker 2: That is Governor Mora Heally as she put her signature
Speaker 2: on a housing bill today that is aimed at helping
Speaker 2: invest in housing in Massachusetts. In fact, it's the Affordable
Speaker 2: Homes Act, the largest investment of its kind in the Commonwealth,
Speaker 2: and with us tonight is the Housing Secretary. It's actually
Speaker 2: housing in Liverpool Communities Secretary Ed Augustus and welcome back
Speaker 2: and listen. I know that the last time we spoke
Speaker 2: was when you were in the City of Worcester doing
Speaker 2: your uh, your your city manager job. So it's been
Speaker 2: a while and you switched jobs and everything.
Speaker 3: Yeah. No, I had the great honor to service City
Speaker 3: manager of Worcester for nine years. And you know, Worcester
Speaker 3: is a place I was born and raised and a
Speaker 3: place that really has come a long way in recent years,
Speaker 3: you know, positioned itself for the knowledge based economy. We've
Speaker 3: got nine colleges and universities there. Most people don't realize
Speaker 3: thirty five thousand college students a year go through the
Speaker 3: great colleges in Worcester, a big life science of presence
Speaker 3: and now home to the Worster Red Sox, the Triple
Speaker 3: A affiliate of the Boston Red Sox, which has brought
Speaker 3: a lot of life and energy and a lot of
Speaker 3: visitors to Worcester into the Canal District.
Speaker 2: I think you officially have to say the WU socks,
Speaker 2: don't you wat. And by the way, all those things
Speaker 2: that you mentioned about Worcester, and I'm a Central Mass
Speaker 2: guy at Northern Central Masters, where I grew up and
Speaker 2: still live, so I'm familiar obviously with Worcester. But even
Speaker 2: with all the things you just mentioned, all the colleges,
Speaker 2: all the places that people can work, the WU socks
Speaker 2: and all of that, housing is still a problem there too,
Speaker 2: as it is all across the state. Now me saying that,
Speaker 2: I want to ask you this question when you look
Speaker 2: at this bill, when you look at the help that's coming,
Speaker 2: and I know sometimes people will say, well, what about us,
Speaker 2: what about my town? What about my city? Is this something?
Speaker 2: Because people live all across the state, as you know,
Speaker 2: and people have trouble living and affording it all across
Speaker 2: the state. Is this uniform in terms of how it's
Speaker 2: going to help people from the Cape to Western Master,
Speaker 2: Eastern Master, Central Mass, from Worcester to Lemonster. Is it
Speaker 2: everybody going to get the same help here?
Speaker 3: Well, there really is an array of different programs within
Speaker 3: this bill that is designed to meet the unique needs
Speaker 3: of different communities around the state. Worcester like Fitchburg and
Speaker 3: Lemonster and Pittsfield and Springfield and Fall River and New Bedford.
Speaker 3: Those are our gateway cities, and there's programs within this
Speaker 3: bill that really help to support our gateway cities which
Speaker 3: have unique opportunities but sometimes unique challenges. This bill also creates,
Speaker 3: for the first time ever something called a seasonal Communities designation,
Speaker 3: and that particularly is going to apply to the communities
Speaker 3: on the Cape, the Islands, and some of the towns
Speaker 3: up in Berkshires that might see their population triple during
Speaker 3: the summer months and have a lot of second or
Speaker 3: third home owners in those communities will only come. They
Speaker 3: own the home year round, but they only stay there
Speaker 3: for a few months of the year or a few
Speaker 3: weekends here and there, and it really changes the housing
Speaker 3: dynamic in that community. The people who have to, you know,
Speaker 3: make those towns work, the DPW employees, the school teachers,
Speaker 3: the folks who work in the hospitality industry, which is
Speaker 3: the lifeblood of all of these tourist communities, are finding
Speaker 3: that they don't have a place for that that workforce
Speaker 3: to live. Fifty percent of the Cape's workforce lives off
Speaker 3: of the Cape. Think about how challenging that is particularly,
Speaker 3: you go further up the cape to get people who
Speaker 3: are able and willing to make that drive every day
Speaker 3: to fill those jobs, and too often we're seeing that
Speaker 3: they're not able to do that and we're having jobs
Speaker 3: not be filmed. The issues on the islands are unique
Speaker 3: but more pronounced in terms of some of the challenges
Speaker 3: that they have, whether it be running the hospitals on
Speaker 3: the two islands or the other kind of essential services
Speaker 3: that allow everybody else to enjoy these amazing places. So
Speaker 3: there's some unique tools in this bill for those seasonal
Speaker 3: communities to help them. So they really are very tailored
Speaker 3: and nuanced programs of design to meet the unique challenges
Speaker 3: and the unique needs of different communities across the stace.
Speaker 2: I want to ask this question of you, Secretary, and
Speaker 2: it's probably an unfair question, but I'm gonna ask it
Speaker 2: anyway because I think it needs to be at least discussed,
Speaker 2: and maybe it's something you have discussed in your job role.
Speaker 2: So we've been dealing with housing prices through the roof
Speaker 2: for a long time. We've been dealing with housing shortages
Speaker 2: for a long time. We've been dealing with homelessness for
Speaker 2: a long time. We've been dealing with all these housing
Speaker 2: related issues for a long time, not just here, all
Speaker 2: across the country. But so here's the question. If we're
Speaker 2: doing stuff about them all the time, and we've been
Speaker 2: dealing with them for a long time, how have we
Speaker 2: not solved these problems yet? I mean, it's probably a
Speaker 2: more difficult thing to answer than my question was to ask.
Speaker 2: But it just seems like, hey, we've been doing this
Speaker 2: for a long time. Shouldn't we have fixed it by now? Yeah?
Speaker 3: I mean, I think part of it. There's a couple
Speaker 3: of things that are at work, I think that have
Speaker 3: made this housing crisis that much more pronounced. One is
Speaker 3: something that's been happening for decades, quite honestly, and that
Speaker 3: is many local comunities have made it very difficult to
Speaker 3: build housing. They've created zoning that doesn't allow many types
Speaker 3: of housing, or requires such large plots of land for
Speaker 3: a single family home that it doesn't allow for the
Speaker 3: more dense housing that often is necessary, particularly near our
Speaker 3: transit notes. That's what the NBCTA Communities Act is really about,
Speaker 3: is removing some of those local barriers that have historically
Speaker 3: existed to create more houses. So I think that's one issue,
Speaker 3: and that's been decades in the works. Post pandemic, we
Speaker 3: saw inflation hit a lot of different sectors. Construction materials,
Speaker 3: the basic elements of building a home, whether it be
Speaker 3: the wood or the steel, depending on how high the
Speaker 3: building is if it's an apartment building, the other physical
Speaker 3: elements saw the prices go up, and even though inflation
Speaker 3: has come down, those prices have not come down, so
Speaker 3: that has made building housing more expensive. And then interest rates.
Speaker 3: You think about it, four years ago, you had the
Speaker 3: ability to get a mortgage maybe at three percent, maybe
Speaker 3: at two and a half percent, fairly cheap money. Now
Speaker 3: you're looking at seven or eight percent interest rate. So
Speaker 3: there's a lot of folks who may want to move.
Speaker 3: Maybe it's time to downsize. The kids have grown up
Speaker 3: and moved away. You want to get a smaller place,
Speaker 3: but you're worried about, you know, trading in a three
Speaker 3: percent mortgage for seven or eight percent mortgage.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 3: Hopefully there's some signals that maybe interest rates will start
Speaker 3: coming down in the near future, and I think as
Speaker 3: that happened, that will be wind at our back in
Speaker 3: terms of housing production. Because every time the interest rates
Speaker 3: come down or go up, one percentage point. It has
Speaker 3: a big impact on the production of housing.
Speaker 2: Right, this Housing Secretary Ed Augustus joining us talking about
Speaker 2: this housing bill that was signed by the governor today.
Speaker 2: Appreciate you taking the time. I mean, I know we
Speaker 2: could do an entire week long series on housing because
Speaker 2: it's such a big issue around these parts. But I
Speaker 2: appreciate you kind of breaking down some of the stuff
Speaker 2: for us and joining us this Stevening on nightside.
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me. Ben, appreciate it being with you, all.
Speaker 2: Right, Thanks a lot, Central mass guy's got to stay together,
Speaker 2: you know that. All that is Ed Augustus, Woroster City
Speaker 2: manager for a long time. I grew up in Worcester
Speaker 2: and now he's the Housing Secretary of Massachusetts. Have you
Speaker 2: ever heard Have you ever heard? Of course you have?
Speaker 2: The shot spotter gun shot detection system seems like a
Speaker 2: great idea. Right, everybody's on board with this, Right, the
Speaker 2: shots ring out and the cops can go and respond
Speaker 2: to it. Maybe not quite that simple. We've got a
Speaker 2: little bit of a controversy around the shot spotter gunshot
Speaker 2: detection system. Of course, it's only a controversy among those
Speaker 2: who have made it that way. We'll talk about that
Speaker 2: coming up with you on here Nightside on WBZ. Ben
Speaker 2: Parker infandam right.
Speaker 1: Night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ, Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2: All right, welcome back to Night's Side, Ben Parker filling
Speaker 2: in for Dan Ray tonight. And we've been having a
Speaker 2: whole lot of guests on a little bit of politics,
Speaker 2: a little bit of housing. Now we're going to talk
Speaker 2: a little bit about crime. And I'm gonna be honest
Speaker 2: with you. I always thought this was a pretty good system. Now,
Speaker 2: as a guy who does news and for those who
Speaker 2: don't know, I do news here on WBZ from two
Speaker 2: to six every weekday afternoon. Make sure you tune in
Speaker 2: and catch the news, and don't forget to download the
Speaker 2: iHeartRadio apps. You can take us with you wherever you go. Now,
Speaker 2: we hear in the news here about police responding to
Speaker 2: a shooting, and a lot of times, or at least
Speaker 2: sometimes in various cities, they respond to those shootings because
Speaker 2: of the shot Spotter gunshot detection system. Boston has it,
Speaker 2: and so do many other cities in Massachusetts and across
Speaker 2: the country. Now, there's been some scrutiny lately of that
Speaker 2: activation of the shot we'll get into a little bit
Speaker 2: of why we as we come up. But we have
Speaker 2: a couple of people tonight who are going to talk
Speaker 2: to us about this system. One of them happens to
Speaker 2: be the CEO of Shot Spotter himself, Ralph Clark. First
Speaker 2: of all, Ralph, thank you for joining Nightside this evening.
Speaker 6: Thank you very much for having me.
Speaker 2: And another is someone who is familiar, certainly his name
Speaker 2: should be to people in Boston. He is from Boston.
Speaker 2: He was the police commissioner in Boston. Also in New
Speaker 2: York City, he was the chief of the LA Police Department.
Speaker 2: He's been all over the place and he joins us tonight,
Speaker 2: Bill Bratton. Bill, thanks for joining us.
Speaker 7: Eating good to be back in Boston once again.
Speaker 2: I want to ask. I want to start with Bill
Speaker 2: only because your police background and obviously when something happens,
Speaker 2: in this particular case, a shooting, you want to be
Speaker 2: able to get as police officers to wherever that shooting
Speaker 2: was asap, not only for finding any victims of the shooting,
Speaker 2: but to collect evidence and perhaps get the purp Me
Speaker 2: and as a guy who's had Shot Spotter as part
Speaker 2: of our news stories, what's wrong with that?
Speaker 7: There's a fourth element that adds to that combination, and
Speaker 7: that's to assure the public that we care about crime
Speaker 7: in their neighborhoods. In this particular instance, in terms of
Speaker 7: shots being fired in the neighborhood, whether there's an actual
Speaker 7: victim of the shooting. That in cities around the country
Speaker 7: to eighty percent of shots fired, I never reported, never
Speaker 7: called into nine one one. An amazing statistic that people
Speaker 7: in certain neighborhoods are certain cities is so commonplace that
Speaker 7: they'll stop calling or they assume somebody else is going
Speaker 7: to call. And that figure just was flabagast when I
Speaker 7: first saw that as a chief of police. The idea
Speaker 7: that you assume shotsify it, they're going to call nine
Speaker 7: one one, but they don't. What this technology does. It
Speaker 7: detects the shots being fired instantly. It also identifies the
Speaker 7: caliber of the weapon firing the shots, So is it
Speaker 7: an AI fifteen rifle, is it the smaller Cali king
Speaker 7: a gangun It also detects the number of rounds, which
Speaker 7: is very important information to the responding police. Are they
Speaker 7: responding to a single gun shot, are they responding to
Speaker 7: thirty or forty gun shots in a rapid succession? This
Speaker 7: technology is it is so useful to police, so beneficial
Speaker 7: to the community. I'm flabbergasted that any politician would be
Speaker 7: opposed to its use, its implementation. Yet in this state,
Speaker 7: the two senators in Massachusetts I'm opposed the shots far
Speaker 7: They feel it's a technology that is not beneficial to
Speaker 7: the citizens of the state. I just shake my head.
Speaker 7: I just don't understand it.
Speaker 2: And Bill, Bill is talking about By the way, and
Speaker 2: you may have seen this reported in the in the
Speaker 2: media that there was a letter sent by four members
Speaker 2: of Congress, including Senators Marking and Warren, that basically talked
Speaker 2: about the shot spotter not being accurate for starters and
Speaker 2: then being utilized or used in racially biased ways. And
Speaker 2: I want to bring in the CEO of Shots of Spotters,
Speaker 2: Ralph Clark. Now you explain this to me. I'm just
Speaker 2: asking the question, how is technology that identifies a gunshot
Speaker 2: racially biased?
Speaker 6: Well, the fact is that it isn't racially biased. It
Speaker 6: is a technology that's designed to detect, locate, and alert
Speaker 6: on instances of gunfire where we know the traditional nine
Speaker 6: one one system is effectively broken for these vulnerable communities
Speaker 6: when it relates to gun violence, I think, as Commissioner
Speaker 6: Bratton stated, you know, eighty to ninety percent of criminal
Speaker 6: gunfire goes unreported in these communities. And that's really interesting
Speaker 6: to me. I think, you know it's Bill said, you know,
Speaker 6: he was flabbergacid by it, and you ask the questions like, well,
Speaker 6: why isn't it that people call UH?
Speaker 3: Or why is it.
Speaker 6: That people don't call nine one one when they hear gunshots?
Speaker 6: And we attribute that to the four rs? I mean,
Speaker 6: it's like, do I recognize it as gunfire? Am I
Speaker 6: concerned about retribution? I don't want to be a snitch
Speaker 6: and then have the perpetrators come to my house and
Speaker 6: potentially put me in harm's way. Redundancy, Hey, somebody else
Speaker 6: are going to someone else is going to call, right
Speaker 6: one of my neighbors are going to call. And the
Speaker 6: saddest one to me is the issue of resignation. We're
Speaker 6: just resigned to this is the way it is. And
Speaker 6: to me flabbergasting that people would not support the idea
Speaker 6: of enabling first responders and law enforcement to come to
Speaker 6: areas where guns have been fired because what we know
Speaker 6: is this, I would be willing to guarantee you and
Speaker 6: I've spent two years I went to grad school in Boston.
Speaker 6: If a gun is fired in Cambridge near Harvard Business School,
Speaker 6: I can tell you people are gonna call and there's
Speaker 6: going to be a response. And so my question to
Speaker 6: the critics is, if a gun's fired in Dorchester, Jamaica,
Speaker 6: planes or Roxbury, don't those residents deserve the same type
Speaker 6: of care in response. And there's nothing racist about that.
Speaker 6: That's anti racist in my opinion.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, it's also interesting and we've been this
Speaker 2: has been hammered home so many times, especially since September eleventh,
Speaker 2: But you know, see something, say something? What about hear
Speaker 2: something say something? Wouldn't it make sense? I mean, maybe
Speaker 2: I'm just talking from a different upbringing than other people,
Speaker 2: but if you hear something that sounds like a gunshot,
Speaker 2: I think, I think, and Commissioner you can answer this.
Speaker 2: Most police departments would rather you call and be on
Speaker 2: the safe side than go maybe it was a car backfiring.
Speaker 7: Exactly. And the point that we should really drive home
Speaker 7: is that even though in ten to thirteen, ten to
Speaker 7: fifteen percent of instances that there is a victim or
Speaker 7: that there is a perpetrator still on the scene, when
Speaker 7: the police arrive, or that there is evidence recovered the
Speaker 7: gun or shell casings, even though on only fifteen percent
Speaker 7: of the time by the time the police get there,
Speaker 7: do they find evidence, if you will, if there was
Speaker 7: actually a shooting, the evidence of the shooting is in
Speaker 7: fact the gun shot detection system itself that eighty five
Speaker 7: ninety percent of the time it'll detect accurately that a
Speaker 7: shot on many shots in some instances have been fired.
Speaker 7: This idea of racial act that the idea that is
Speaker 7: racially biased. I might point out the boarder I probably
Speaker 7: serve on the bord of directors of shots bottom. Ralph
Speaker 7: Clark Ukon sym Ralph Clark is African American. Our border directors.
Speaker 7: Half of our border directors a minority. Half of our
Speaker 7: border directors are women. One of our border directors is
Speaker 7: the president of the National Urban League, former mayor of
Speaker 7: New Orleans. So these are people that are very racially
Speaker 7: sensitive and concerned about what's happening in minority communities, in
Speaker 7: particular because the reality of crime and violent crime is
Speaker 7: it has a phenomenally significant impact in the poor minority
Speaker 7: neighborhoods of our cities in our country. In the irony
Speaker 7: of our two senators here in Massachusetts and other politicians
Speaker 7: around the country in the ACLU, advocating that somehow or
Speaker 7: another this system is racial biased is abserved because the
Speaker 7: idea is it is intended to help save minority lives,
Speaker 7: Because where is most serious violent crime occurring in minority neighborhoods?
Speaker 7: The fact of life, fifty years ago, when I joined
Speaker 7: the Boston Police Department, most of the violent crime, most
Speaker 7: of the shootings, most of the murders occurred in Boston,
Speaker 7: in Mattapan, Dorchester, Roxbury. Today, fifty years later, thank god,
Speaker 7: there is much less violence. But where do most of
Speaker 7: the shootings, murders, and violent crime occur in Boston in
Speaker 7: those same neighborhoods that, fifty years later are still bind
Speaker 7: lige minority. So the idea that the system is somehow
Speaker 7: and other biased against minorities, it is intended to save
Speaker 7: minority lives, and it does. And let me make the
Speaker 7: point out one example of that, and this occurs repeatedly.
Speaker 3: Police get to the.
Speaker 7: Seeing very quickly because of the nine to one to
Speaker 7: one notification and on occasion, should we find a shooting
Speaker 7: victim in that shooting victim, they will be able to
Speaker 7: treat immediately. They carry traumatis now, and frequently because of
Speaker 7: the grievous injury, they will push that victim in a
Speaker 7: police car and get them to the hospital. Why because
Speaker 7: if they don't get that person in the hospital quickly,
Speaker 7: they're going to bleed out and die. So the way
Speaker 7: it works, nine to one, one is notified by the
Speaker 7: police apartment to send an ambulance, but the ambulance is
Speaker 7: going to come five minutes after the police have already
Speaker 7: on the scene. So we're seeing repeatedly where police are
Speaker 7: now encouraged to take the victims themselves to the hospital
Speaker 7: because when that three minutes it takes the ambulance to
Speaker 7: get there after the police have already by thanks to
Speaker 7: short spot them. That person's don't bleed out, that person's
Speaker 7: going to die. So there's been a study that's been
Speaker 7: done that pretty conclusively proves that fact.
Speaker 2: You guys are good to take a quick phone call here, certainly,
Speaker 2: all right, we got Andy and Merrin Mack. Let's let's
Speaker 2: see what Andy's up to. Good evening, Andy, welcome to
Speaker 2: Night's side.
Speaker 5: Hey, good evening, everyone. I appreciate taking the call.
Speaker 2: What do you got for a question?
Speaker 7: I just want.
Speaker 5: I just uh, I guess I got two things. The
Speaker 5: one thing was I was in the service and we
Speaker 5: had a system called I think it was a boomerang
Speaker 5: that's located various reports, uh, mainly from the small arms
Speaker 5: fire UH in a.
Speaker 3: Three you know, fear and SI degree matter.
Speaker 5: I'm guessing it's something similar with this technology.
Speaker 2: With UH, I don't know. I think we think we
Speaker 2: might have lost Andy. But are you familiar either one
Speaker 2: of you then with what he was trying to refer
Speaker 2: to the military's version of this, Yeah.
Speaker 6: There's there is a system. There was a system called boomerang,
Speaker 6: which was an anti sniper technology that would often be
Speaker 6: you'd have a sensor attached to humby and it could
Speaker 6: tell if there's a sniper fire toward the humbie or
Speaker 6: in the general vicinity of the humbie. We operate on
Speaker 6: a slightly different principle just for your listeners, for them
Speaker 6: to understand how the technology works. We deployed about twenty
Speaker 6: to thirty censors per square mile, and the censers are
Speaker 6: spread out and they're designed to activate in time, stamp
Speaker 6: on impulsion noises, large sounding pops, boons, and bangs, and
Speaker 6: when three or more centers are able to detect and
Speaker 6: timestamp were able to use the time stamp differential to
Speaker 6: be able to do a mathematical calculation to triangulate or
Speaker 6: pinpoint the exact location of the gunfire and then go
Speaker 6: through a couple of steps to confirm in fact that
Speaker 6: pop bloomber bang was gunfire for pushing the alert out
Speaker 6: to the subscribing agency, and this typically takes place within
Speaker 6: thirty to forty five seconds of the trigger being pulled.
Speaker 6: And this is why it represents such a game changer.
Speaker 6: I think, as the commissioner stated, the difference between response,
Speaker 6: the precise response to a location of a gunfire event
Speaker 6: with a two to three minute advantage over the twenty
Speaker 6: percent of the time you do get a nine one
Speaker 6: one call can effectively make the difference between life and death.
Speaker 6: And I'll just say that I know this personally because
Speaker 6: one of my dear friend's life was saved as a
Speaker 6: result of a shot spot alert where he was actually
Speaker 6: shot and the calls came in literally two minutes after
Speaker 6: and by the time the calls came in, they were
Speaker 6: already had first responders there to scoop them up and
Speaker 6: take them to the hospital. Whereas life was saved.
Speaker 2: That is pretty incredible. CEO of shot Spotter Ralph Clark
Speaker 2: is with us, along with a former Boston Police commissioner,
Speaker 2: New York Police Commissioner chief in LA and he's been
Speaker 2: all over the place. Here's a Boston guy, Bill Bratton
Speaker 2: is with us, and we'll continue our conversation about the
Speaker 2: shot spotter system and why they think the people who
Speaker 2: are against it are well wrong. Ben Parker filling in
Speaker 2: for Dan Ray on night Side.
Speaker 1: Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World
Speaker 1: Life Side Studios.
Speaker 2: I'm WBZ News Radio. All right, we're back and we're
Speaker 2: talking about shot spot her. And before we get back
Speaker 2: to our guests, I want to bring Andy and Merrimac
Speaker 2: back because he got to cut off and I just
Speaker 2: want to make sure he gets his question in fairly.
Speaker 2: Hey Andy, go ahead.
Speaker 5: Hey, Sorry about that.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 5: No, I was mainly colleges to bring up the boomerang system,
Speaker 5: and it seems like there was a familiar sort of
Speaker 5: system of systems, but definitely awesome and you know, a
Speaker 5: force multiplier for the police. It just, you know, for me,
Speaker 5: the second part of what I was calling about with
Speaker 5: the HD, I think it's the twenty two forty new
Speaker 5: legislation that basically ramps up firearm control, so to say,
Speaker 5: kind of marketed towards coast guns. So i'm you know,
Speaker 5: if they're if they're gonna pair the law enforcement officers
Speaker 5: up with this new system, it seems like we're taking
Speaker 5: away you know, legal fire arms from laura biding citizens,
Speaker 5: will also making more of a detriment for our law
Speaker 5: enforcement personnel to respond to any sort of shot calls.
Speaker 5: I don't know if you can make any opinions on it, all.
Speaker 2: Right, appreciate it, Thank you, Andy. I don't know if
Speaker 2: if that well, I mean, obviously, this is an argument
Speaker 2: that's always made about guns, and you know the laura
Speaker 2: biding one with a gun can take out a criminal
Speaker 2: with a gun. But I mean you obviously, and this
Speaker 2: is to either one of you. But you know, having
Speaker 2: less gun play and gun fire on the streets is obviously,
Speaker 2: I think every law enforcement person's goal, right.
Speaker 7: So definitely that's in one of the goals of Shots Bought.
Speaker 7: It is to actively identify just how much gunfire is
Speaker 7: occurring in American cities, and there's a phenomenal amount of it.
Speaker 7: Based on the fact that eighty to ninety percent of shots.
Speaker 7: As Ralph indicated, I never called into ninety one one.
Speaker 7: So the system is intended to whenever possible that shots
Speaker 7: of PI it, to try to get the police there
Speaker 7: quickly enough so that they can help a victim that
Speaker 7: I need attention or a rest to perpetrator who's using
Speaker 7: that firearm inappropriately, whether they legally possess it illegally possess it.
Speaker 2: I want to think I was going to say that,
Speaker 2: I just want to throw this out real quick for you, Ralph,
Speaker 2: and the whole racial background, and as Bill mentioned, I mean,
Speaker 2: you're African Americans, so that kind of diffuses that situation.
Speaker 2: But so if you look into a place like Jamaica,
Speaker 2: Plain or Roxbury or Dorchester or wherever, and sure there's
Speaker 2: neighborhoods and areas there where there is predominantly African American populations.
Speaker 2: But by saying that having this system in one neighborhood
Speaker 2: over another is inherently racist seems weird because you would
Speaker 2: be implying that no white people or other races live there,
Speaker 2: and no white people or other races ever fire a
Speaker 2: gun in those neighborhoods.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it just doesn't come into our consideration, we want
Speaker 6: to be deployed where criminal gunfire takes place. And I
Speaker 6: think the critics of the system that try to make
Speaker 6: it a racial issue are looking at it more from
Speaker 6: a i'll call it criminal justice reform lens as opposed
Speaker 6: to a victimization lens. And we spent a lot of
Speaker 6: time talking about the victims of gun violence, ie gunshot victims.
Speaker 6: But I think if you understood the trauma involved, especially
Speaker 6: with young people that are exposed to the violence of
Speaker 6: hearing gun bunts, they go to bed to the sound
Speaker 6: of gun violence, they wake up to the sound of
Speaker 6: gun violence. If we ever total the cost of the
Speaker 6: trauma inflicted on these communities to hear and experience that
Speaker 6: amount of gun bounds and then still not have police
Speaker 6: and first responders be able to come to investigate and
Speaker 6: treat it as a priority in care, that's further victimization.
Speaker 6: That's twice victimization, and to me, that is that's racist.
Speaker 6: To me, I mean, we need to care about thectims.
Speaker 6: And I think when you look at it through that lench,
Speaker 6: it comes to a very different conclusion than the credits.
Speaker 6: So I think you're driving just to a different agenda.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're down to our last minute, but that CEO
Speaker 2: of shot Spotted, Ralph Clark, and former NYPD and BPD
Speaker 2: police commissioner Bill Bratton is with us. And before I
Speaker 2: just want to get this out there and then I'll
Speaker 2: let you guys respond to it real quickly. There was
Speaker 2: this letter sent by, among others, Senator Market and Senator
Speaker 2: Warren about the complaining or criticizing this technology. And before
Speaker 2: you think, well, this guy's the CEO of a shot spotterer,
Speaker 2: of course you're going to say this, Well, there's a
Speaker 2: letter here in response to the letter that was written
Speaker 2: by the lawmakers that, among other things, says, we believe
Speaker 2: you've been misinformed and this formed the basis of your
Speaker 2: May fourteenth letter, a letter that draws misleading and frankly
Speaker 2: dangerous conclusions that compromised public safety. That letter, that part
Speaker 2: of that bigger letter, was not signed by Ralph Clark.
Speaker 2: It was signed by a police commissioners and chiefs all
Speaker 2: across this fine state, including Michael Cox out of Boston,
Speaker 2: the Cambridge, Somerville, Revere. I'm not going to read them
Speaker 2: all because they'll waste too much time. So this gentleman
Speaker 2: and commissioner Brighton. This shows that this is being used
Speaker 2: by lots of police departments to do lots of good, and.
Speaker 7: It does do lots of good in one hundred and
Speaker 7: seventy cities around America and Ralph.
Speaker 2: I'll let you get the kind of the last word
Speaker 2: in here. Obviously, you're not going to give up trying
Speaker 2: to use your technology to save the lives that you
Speaker 2: say it does save.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 6: Absolutely, it's a calling for myself and my other three
Speaker 6: hundred plus colleagues. This is a mission orient work. We
Speaker 6: care deeply about this work and the significance of it
Speaker 6: in terms of saving lives and helping hold police in
Speaker 6: first responders to be more accountable, to prioritize responding to
Speaker 6: ongoing persistent gun violence. And I think I would just
Speaker 6: add to I know there was a letter from the
Speaker 6: chiefs of police and commissioners, but I think it's also
Speaker 6: important to note that your mayor, who some would argue
Speaker 6: is a progressive mayor, is very supportive of the technology
Speaker 6: as well. And I can say that coming from a
Speaker 6: place like Oakland, California, which I was born and raised
Speaker 6: and currently live, that also is known to have progressive chops.
Speaker 6: It's used in Oakland as well, and so I think
Speaker 6: progressive mayors in political leadership that really understand the value
Speaker 6: of life and understand how important it is to support
Speaker 6: police and do a better job in responding to these
Speaker 6: communities and the issues around gun violence. I think is
Speaker 6: incredibly important and we count them as very valuable allies.
Speaker 7: All us work.
Speaker 2: Thank you, I appreciate it. We'll let you guys go.
Speaker 2: That was a CEO of a shot spotter, Ralph Clark,
Speaker 2: and the former of BPD and NYPD and Chief out
Speaker 2: in La Bill Bratton, joining the show to talk about it.
Speaker 2: We will have much more coming up. Perhaps you've been
Speaker 2: watching the Olympics, maybe you haven't. We'll talk about the
Speaker 2: Olympics straight ahead on nights side of d BC m
Speaker 2: HM