What To Know Today

The popularity of public safety reforms and community-focused violence reduction programs. In the aftermath of nationwide calls for reform after the killing of George Floyd, researchers at Johns Hopkins, the New School, and Cornell Universities undertook a survey of American attitudes on policies for reforming the police or enacting community-violence interventions. The newly published results from the January 2021 survey found majority support for: enacting alternatives to police response for people in crisis; nonincarceration alternatives for people with mental illness; and strong laws for police accountability. Funding community-based and hospital-based gun violence intervention programs also polled well, at 69 percent and 60 percent, respectively. Support for diverting funding from law enforcement to social services varied by demographics, with 35 percent support for white respondents; 43 percent for Hispanics; and 60 percent for Black respondents. Support was strongest for all reforms among Black Americans, and Black gun owners were more likely to support reforms than white gun owners. “These findings suggest that broad public support exists for innovative violence reduction strategies and public safety reforms,” the authors wrote.

Albuquerque Police investigate fatal shootings of four Muslim men. Naeem Hussain was fatally shot Friday night in the parking lot of a center for immigrants, the spokesperson of the Islamic Center of New Mexico said. The incident happened just hours after the man in his 20s had attended a funeral service for two Muslim men — Aftab Hussein, 41, and Muhammad Afzaal Hussain, 27 — who were shot near their homes in the past two weeks. Authorities suspect that the slayings — and one in November — are connected and intentionally targeted people from the Muslim community. “Now, people are beginning to panic,” Tahir Gauba, with the Islamic Center of New Mexico, told The Albuquerque Journal. A friend of Hussain’s told the Journal he had just become a U.S. citizen last month and described him as a “really kind person.” 

Man arrested for shooting at Chicago park was heavily armed, had notes about mass shootings. A 29-year-old man from a Chicago suburb was arrested after police said he drove to a park in Englewood on the city’s South Side and fired a gun at an empty park early Thursday. Police detained him and, after searching his van, said they found him with three handguns, a shotgun, an AR-15, more than a thousand ammunition rounds, and hand scrawled notes about mass violence. He was charged with five felony counts of unlawful use of a weapon. Police said he had a valid state gun owner’s ID card, but not a license to carry concealed. 

Two mass shootings in Detroit over the weekend leave two dead, 10 injured. The shootings in residential neighborhoods happened just 12 hours apart on Saturday, police said. In Cincinnati, a mass shooting outside a popular night spot left nine people injured early Sunday morning when at least two people opened fire during a conflict between two groups, police said. “We need community support, the citizens of Cincinnati to realize this is a devastating trend and to work with us to resolve differences without gunfire,” Mayor Aftab Pureval said at a news conference. There were at least seven mass shootings that left four or more people injured nationwide on Saturday and Sunday, according to Gun Violence Archive.

Data Point

69 percent — the share of Nevada voters who said they support red flag laws, according to a new Nevada Independent/OH Predictive Insights poll. A state red flag law went into effect in 2020, though the law has been used infrequently. The new survey also found majority support for a number of gun reforms, including raising the age to 21 for all gun purchases (70 percent) and requiring a 30-days waiting period for buying firearms (60 percent). [The Nevada Independent]