What To Know Today
New York AG is asking a court to name an independent monitor to oversee the NRA’s management of its assets. Letitia James made the request this week in an amended complaint that she filed in her suit against the NRA, which alleges widespread waste and looting of charitable assets by the gun group’s leadership. The monitor would report to James’s office and the court. James had sought the dissolution of the group, but the judge in the case rejected that request last month. The amended complaint seeks the appointment of an outside governance expert to advise the court on what reforms are needed at the NRA. It also continues to seek removal of NRA boss Wayne LaPierre, an option that the judge’s ruling left open. Discovery is now slated to end in October. — Will Van Sant, staff writer
U.S. judge defends legality of charging D.C. gun cases in federal court. In 2019, the Trump administration joined with some D.C. officials in launching a policy to federally charge residents who have existing felony convictions and are arrested for illegally possessing firearms. That usually means that defendants will face harsher sentencing than they would in local court, and criminal justice reformers sued against the policy they said targeted predominantly Black neighborhoods and usurped D.C.’s home-rule authority. This week, U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan upheld the policy, siding with the Justice Department that continued to defend the policy under the Biden administration — to the consternation of reformers.
More data on the non-gun related stops NYPD’s new anti-gun unit is making. NYPD figures obtained by the New York Post show that Mayor Eric Adams’s new Neighborhood Safety Teams were primarily conducting traffic stops and have so far have only recovered a handful of guns in their first few weeks. Most suspects pulled over were being charged for low-level traffic offenses. Of the open cases related to the anti-gun unit the Post was able to get records for, two-thirds were because of car stops rather than stops on the street. The figures, which are still selectively released to the public, come after City and State obtained similar data last month showing that the units had mostly focused on low-level, non-violent arrests, with illegal drug possession and fake ID arrests together outpacing ones for illegal gun possession.
Milwaukee’s effort to rethink childhood trauma and incarceration. A USA TODAY report looks at the socioeconomic inequalities in trauma that are a key predictor of later violence and incarceration. Local officials are trying to more effectively target mental health care to proactively cut down on both. “We have already lost a whole generation because we have failed to deal with the ugly truths to stop the cycle, the generational cycle,” said Brenda Wesley, a member of the Milwaukee County Mental Health Board.” Related from The Trace: Champe Barton’s To Shed a Cage offered a deep-dive into the lives of Milwaukee friends Hamid Abd-Al-Jabbar and David Thompson as they struggled to acclimate after decades of incarceration.
Data Point
11 percent — the year-over-year decrease in homicide in Philadelphia, coming after two of the most violent years on record. Of the 157 homicides to date, 137 were shootings. Meanwhile, there have been 558 nonfatal shooting injuries. [Philadelphia Office of the Controller]
