What To Know Today
NYC’s anti-gun unit trainees have history of excessive force complaints. The so-called Neighborhood Safety Teams, an updated version of plainclothes police units that were disbanded in 2020 amid concerns over civil rights abuses, were re-launched as a key component of Mayor Eric Adams’ gun violence prevention strategy. Initial data shows that in their first few weeks, the teams primarily conducted traffic stops or other low-level, nonviolent arrests. Now, reporting from New York Focus shows that many trainees with the new teams have previously been accused of committing abuses. The city hasn’t released the names of people serving on the teams, but New York Focus identified officers in the requisite training courses and found the number is nearly identical to that of officers on the Neighborhood Safety Teams. The report found that about 13 percent of the officers who have completed both courses had at least five complaints against them. Eight officers had at least 10 complaints.
‘An ongoing investigation’: NY AG on possibility of legal action against gunmakers. Last summer, New York enacted a law classifying the unlawful or improper marketing or sale of guns as a public nuisance, allowing for suits against gunmakers that could sidestep their federal liability protections. “All I can say to you is that there’s an ongoing investigation and we are developing some facts,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said Saturday when asked if her office could use the state law to sue the gun manufacturer of the weapon used in last week’s mass shooting in Buffalo. The New York law faces a federal suit from the gun industry’s trade group and 14 gun manufacturers, distributors, and retailers.
Fatal shooting on New York City subway leaves one dead. Witnesses say an unidentified person walked up and shot Daniel Enriquez, 48, without provocation on a train in lower Manhattan on Sunday morning. Enriquez was on his way to brunch with a friend, his sister said. She called him “a special, jovial guy.” While violence on the subway is still rare, the incident comes after a number of high-profile incidents have rocked the subway system, including a mass shooting on a subway train in Brooklyn last month that left 10 people injured from gunfire.
A mass shooting in California left eight people injured, one dead. The incident, at a large party at a hookah lounge in San Bernardino occurred late Friday. Police said a dispute between two groups of people led to the shooting and that the victims, including the dead 20-year-old, were not intended targets. Another mass shooting that went under the radar: A 21-year-old Chicagoan was denied bail after being charged with murder in a Thursday evening shooting near Chicago’s downtown that left two dead and seven injured. There have been 210 mass shootings this year, according to Gun Violence Archive.
Data Point
3 — the number of shootings at high school graduation ceremonies in Michigan, Tennessee, and Louisiana in the last week, leaving six people injured and one person dead. [ABC News]
