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WHAT TO KNOW TODAY
NEW from THE TRACE: ‘Boogaloo’ believers think another civil war is coming. Gun firms are openly marketing to them. The term is slang for the armed uprising that a loose assortment of preppers, Second Amendment absolutists, and anti-government extremists is gearing up for — and in some cases trying to accelerate. Adherents’ fixation on guns and tactical gear makes them attractive customers for gun businesses, which are hawking their products by invoking the memes and rhetoric of the disjointed anti-government ideology, contributor Ian Karbal reports. One Michigan ammo company that has frequently referenced the boogaloo in its social media posts also counts a major gun manufacturer and several local law enforcement departments as clients. Read the investigation, published in partnership with The Informant, which covers extremism in the United States. You can signup for The Informant’s eye-opening newsletters here.
Minneapolis officials take another step toward abolishing police force. The 13-member City Council unanimously voted Friday to replace the existing, largely white department with “a department of community safety and violence prevention, which will have responsibility for public safety services prioritizing a holistic, public health-oriented approach.” The plan wouldn’t do away with cops altogether; a unit of “licensed peace officers” would be supervised by the new department.
Shooting leaves one dead at a Breonna Taylor protest in Louisville, Kentucky. Police have arrested the suspected gunman who fired a dozen shots into a crowd of people on Saturday at a park where demonstrators have rallied against the police. The 27-year-old man killed during the barrage was photographing the protest, his family said. Taylor, an EMT, was fatally shot in her own home during a no-knock raid in March. One of the three officers involved in that incident has been fired, but none have been criminally charged.
An armed couple threatened Black Lives Matter protesters in St. Louis. As peaceful demonstrators made their way to a rally outside the home of Mayor Lyda Krewson in the city’s Central West End neighborhood, a white man waving a semiautomatic rifle and a white woman brandishing a handgun emerged from their mansion to confront them. The couple has been identified as local personal injury attorneys.
Two people were killed in a workplace shooting in California. Four others were injured when a former employee armed with a semiautomatic rifle opened fire at a Walmart distribution center in the small city of Red Bluff, two hours north of Sacramento. The shooter, who was killed by police, had been let go from his job at the facility in February 2019. The incident was one of nine mass shootings to take place since last Friday, according to Gun Violence Archive.
At least 58 people were shot in Chicago over the weekend. Thirteen of the victims were killed, including a 10-year-old girl struck by a bullet that entered her uncle’s apartment and a 20-month-old toddler hit by gunfire as his mother drove home from a laundromat. In response to the toddler’s death, a group of business owners are offering a $25,000 reward for information about the shooters. “Something has to be done,” one of them said. “We are tired, fed up as it relates to gun violence.”
A Virginia judge upheld the state’s new one-handgun-per-month law. A suit filed by the Virginia Citizens Defense League and Gun Owners of America sought to halt the law, which is scheduled to take effect on July 1. Last week, a state circuit court judge said the gun groups were unlikely to convince the court that the measure was unconstitutional. The groups are also challenging the state’s expansion of gun background checks to include private sales. A decision in that case is pending.
DATA POINT
112 people have been injured or killed in 83 shootings between June 19 and 27 in New York City, the NYPD said. [1010 WINS]
