What to Know Today
NEW from THE TRACE: In tight races, Republicans refuse to denounce Alex Jones. More than 70 GOP candidates in competitive congressional and gubernatorial races declined to denounce Alex Jones for claiming that the Sandy Hook massacre never happened. The Trace’s Jennifer Mascia, Mike Spies, and Chip Brownlee reached out to 79 Republican candidates and asked if they believe the 2012 shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, was a hoax, if they support the Sandy Hook families suing Jones for damages, and if they denounce Jones’s actions toward the families. Only seven responded. Among the candidates who failed to respond were Marco Rubio, Mehmet Oz, J.D. Vance, and Herschel Walker. Read the full story here.
Bridging the data gap on nonfatal police shootings. There is no comprehensive data on incidents in which police shoot and wound someone, The Washington Post reports, making it difficult to hold law enforcement accountable for the resulting injuries, trauma, and legal issues. To fill in the gap, the Post obtained data on nonfatal shootings from 156 departments that counted at least five fatal police shootings from 2015 to 2020. The reporting team found that for every five people those departments shot and killed, officers shot and wounded four others.
Gunman kills two in St. Louis high school shooting. A shooter killed a health teacher and a teenage student and injured six others at Central Visual and Performing Arts High School in south St. Louis on Monday morning, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported. Police shot and killed the suspected gunman inside the school. According to police, school doors were locked and seven security workers were on site Monday morning. Police did not say how the gunman entered the building.
Texas fires state police officer over response to Uvalde massacre. Sergeant Juan Maldonado, the highest-ranking state trooper to initially respond to the Robb Elementary School shooting and a 23-year veteran of the state Department of Public Safety, was fired on Friday. Maldonado is the first state police official to lose their job over the botched response to the shooting. Body camera footage released by the Uvalde Police Department showed that Maldonado arrived at the school within four minutes of the shooting, The Texas Tribune reported. School safety: The Uvalde school district is set to receive almost half a million dollars to beef up campus security, courtesy of the federal gun safety law passed this summer.
Oxford High School shooter pleads guilty. On Monday, the gunman’s attorneys withdrew an insanity defense and entered a guilty plea to 24 criminal charges, including terrorism and first-degree murder, The Detroit News reported. He killed four classmates and wounded seven others during the school shooting in Michigan last November. The shooter, now 16, said he made the decision to plead guilty, with no plea deal, the Detroit Free Press reported. His parents also face multiple involuntary manslaughter charges — the teen said at the hearing that he gave his father money to purchase the weapon he used that day. Their attorneys have sought to get the case thrown out multiple times.
We’re hiring: Apply to The Trace’s new editing fellowship. We’re launching a two-year fellowship for early- to mid-career journalists looking to establish themselves as editors. You don’t need to have editing experience to apply, but we do ask that you have an eagerness to collaborate and an aptitude for thoughtful journalism. The salary range is $60,000 to $80,000. Applications are open through October 31. Find more details here.
Data Point
87 — the number of people who were shot and wounded by police in New York City from 2015 to 2020. That’s twice the number of people shot and killed by New York police in that time period, 43. [The Washington Post]
