Public Safety and Justice Update: 7/21/23

Families of two teens, with the help of the anti-gun-violence group Everytown for Gun Safety, are suing the distributor of the parts 18-year-old Zachary Burkard used to make a ghost gun, 80P Builder of Florida, and the manufacturer, Polymer80 of Nevada, for gross negligence in providing a teenager with a weapon when he was not legally able to buy a handgun from a federally licensed dealer…

This year to date has been the deadliest six months of mass killings recorded since at least 2006…

In 2008, the Supreme Court struck down a gun control law, ruling the 2nd Amendment protected the “right of law-abiding, responsible citizens” to keep a handgun at home for self-defense…

A civilian agency could take over all investigations into complaints about Oakland police officers’ alleged misconduct and excessive use of force under a proposal that would effectively eradicate the police department’s internal affairs function…

The city of Antioch is resisting subpoenas for at least five of its police officers called to testify about racism and alleged crimes within the department, claiming the officers are out on injury leave and therefore unavailable…

San Jose’s gun liability insurance requirement — the first-of-its-kind in America and upheld by a federal court judge last week — will make the city safer from gun-related violence, its proponents assert…

Cecilia Ashe, Police Chief in Milford, Delaware, was one of three law enforcement experts on gun violence who participated in a recent National Institute of Justice (NIJ) podcast on evidence-based, scientifically sound methods to reduce gun violence in communities…

A new report finds the California State University (CSU) system mishandled years of sexual misconduct claims, calling it an '"institutional betrayal”…

Former president Donald Trump said this week he had received a letter from special counsel Jack Smith informing him that he is the target of the Justice Department’s investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election that culminated in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol…