Featured Story
Gun rights organizations were among a dozen groups that signed on to a filing urging a federal appeals court to allow Texas to enforce a sweeping immigration law that would allow police officers to arrest people they suspect of illegally crossing the border. The filing came days before a Supreme Court deadline to rule on whether the law should be blocked while a legal challenge against it plays out; the groups, which include Gun Owners of America, argue that Texas is a sovereign entity with the right to use a militia to defend itself when necessary. [Bloomberg Law]
Philadelphia
In Philadelphia, overall shootings have declined, but violence on the city’s transit system has not. The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority is grappling with the most shocking gun violence in recent memory — 15 people shot, two fatally, over four days in March. The shootings have “left our city shaken,” Mayor Cherelle Parker said in her first budget address on March 14.
But amid a year with record violence, the transit authority tried, and then aborted, a contract with ZeroEyes, a company that manages an early AI-based gun-detection video analytics platform. In his latest story, The Trace’s Mensah M. Dean explains what happened.
What to Know Today
James Crumbley, the father of the student who shot and killed four people at Oxford High School in Michigan in 2021, was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter last week. His wife was found guilty of the same charges last month. While they aren’t the first parents to be convicted after a shooting by their child, the Crumbleys were the first to be held criminally responsible for a mass shooting at a school. [Associated Press/The New York Times/Detroit Free Press]
Violence in Oakland, California, has ebbed and flowed through the years, but recently the city has made headlines for gun violence numbers that remain stubbornly high. Community leaders say the violence in the city “is requiring all of us to work together,” as one organizer put it. “To face it and figure it out.” [The Guardian]
The number of routine traffic stops conducted by Chicago Police increased nearly 500 percent from 2014 to 2022, resulting in thousands of gun charges for the city’s residents. Civil rights advocates say the people facing those charges are collateral damage in an ineffective strategy to fight crime. [WBEZ]
Just a month after the mass shooting at a Super Bowl victory rally in Kansas City, Missouri, victims feel like they’ve already been forgotten. As prosecutors mount cases against the suspected shooters, community leaders are weighing how to compensate people caught in the crossfire. The questions are far-reaching. [KCUR and KFF Health News]
Data Point
511,000 — the number of traffic stops conducted by Chicago Police in 2022. In 2014, that number was 87,000. [WBEZ]
