In Chicago, gunshot victims are contending with the kind of quick decision-making you might think would be more common in remote areas: Should they risk waiting for an ambulance that may come too late, or should they find their own way to a hospital?
As emergency response times in one of the country’s biggest cities have gotten worse, the latter has become a popular option, reports The Trace’s Rita Oceguera. The alternative has gained a familiar storyline to many Chicagoans: When someone gets shot, ambulances don’t always arrive quickly, and victims don’t always survive. Instead, some gunshot wound victims are getting rides from friends or driving themselves to the emergency room for a chance to get treatment in time.
As Oceguera reports, there’s more to the story. Beneath the surface of its worsening response times, the Chicago Fire Department is also failing to keep track of this information. Oceguera’s story has more.
From The Trace
Some Chicago Gunshot Victims Don’t Trust Ambulances: Survivors are choosing to transport themselves to the hospital instead of waiting for emergency services. Experts say the Chicago Fire Department isn’t doing everything it can to improve slow response times.
Detroit Ended 2024 With the Lowest Number of Homicides Since 1965. Now It May Lose a Crucial Program: The $10 million initiative is funded by the Joe Biden-era American Rescue Plan Act, an economic stimulus package set to expire this year.
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What to Know Today
A federal judge temporarily paused a new Maine law requiring a three-day waiting period for gun purchases, granting a request from gun rights groups. In his ruling, U.S. District Judge Lance Walker wrote that the waiting period measure, passed in the wake of the state’s deadliest mass shooting, was overly broad and out of sync with the precedent established by the Supreme Court’s Bruen decision. [Portland Press-Herald]
A majority of children who die in mass shootings — defined by researchers as events with four or more fatalities, excluding the perpetrator — are killed by family members, according to a new study from Stanford Medicine. The study is in line with prior Trace reporting showing that, though many parents worry about school shootings, children are far more likely to be shot in a domestic violence incident. [Stanford Medicine]
In their new legislative session, Texas lawmakers will consider a number of proposals to address the state’s rising domestic violence, including bills that would create a domestic violence offender registry and make it easier to enforce prohibitions on gun possession by people subject to a protective order. The firearm-related bills face an uphill battle in the gun-friendly, GOP-controlled Legislature. [The Texas Tribune]
Last fall, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson followed through on his promise to decommission ShotSpotter, after years of controversy about the gunshot detection system. The shutdown came amid a protracted political struggle between the mayor and the City Council, and it was never clear that Johnson’s effort to kick ShotSpotter out of the city would prevail in the long term. Now, Johnson is shopping around for new surveillance technology — but it’s possible that he could be looking back at ShotSpotter, too. [Chicago Sun-Times]
Friday marked seven years since the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. The attack sparked a national movement, led by survivors, to end gun violence. While the movement has seen gains in the past few years, the return of Donald Trump — the sitting president at the time of the shooting — to the White House threatens what progress there’s been. [USA TODAY]
Maryland lawmakers are making another attempt to impose an excise tax on firearms, after a similar bill that also proposed taxing ammunition failed to make it into law last year. The new legislation proposes using the tax dollars to fund trauma care services, violence prevention and intervention programming, and support for survivors of homicide victims. [Maryland Matters]
Michigan judges granted 287 of the 391 emergency risk protection order requests in the law’s first full year of implementation, according to state data. While the report did not specify how many orders were requested by law enforcement versus civilians, an earlier review of data through June showed that police had initiated almost all of the requests. [The Detroit News]
Data Point
26 percent — the increase in reported domestic violence incidents in Texas since 2019. [The Texas Tribune]
Non Sequitur
Eagles Win Loan Of Manet Painting In Super Bowl Bet, Which Is What This Thing Was About All Along
“The Philadelphia Eagles’ Super Bowl parade ends at the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. In a few months, that museum will receive its own prize from the Eagles’ win—an Édouard Manet painting, won on loan from Kansas City’s Nelson-Atkins Museum in a Super Bowl bet.” [Defector]
