Twice last weekend, on-duty New York Police Department officers opened fire with their service weapons when their tasers failed, injuring or killing someone. On September 13, police were executing a warrant on a murder suspect in a private home in Brooklyn when the suspect reportedly threatened officers with a knife. A police sergeant fired his taser, but that didn’t subdue the suspect; several officers then opened fire with their police-issued handguns, killing him. Two days later, NYPD officers deployed a taser when a subway rider evaded the fare and allegedly threatened them with a knife. Their tasers reportedly failed, and one of the officers opened fire, wounding a fellow officer, the fare-beater, and two bystanders.

Tasers have been touted as a less-lethal alternative to guns. But they only work as intended 60 percent of the time, a sprawling 2019 investigation found. “In 258 cases over three years, a Taser failed to subdue someone who was then shot and killed by police,” American Public Media reported. The type of taser used by the NYPD is ineffective 28 percent of the time, according to the NYPD’s own statistics. 

One possible reason for the failures: The model used by the NYPD, the X-26P, reduced its electrical output so as to avoid triggering cardiac events, Reuters reported. Officers in other parts of the country have sued the manufacturer over the reduced efficacy. In New York City, there are law firms dedicated solely to claims of police taser abuse.

“You want these things to work 100 percent of the time,” Joseph Giacalone, a retired NYPD detective sergeant and adjunct professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, told Gothamist back in 2019. “Because if not, then that 30 percent of the time, that situation is going to escalate and it gets ugly.”

From The Trace

What to Know Today

Defense lawyers for the shooter who perpetrated the 2018 school shooting in Parkland, Florida, never disputed their client’s guilt, nor did they excuse the devastation he wrought with the killing of 17 people, the injury of 17 others, and the trauma the events caused countless more. Their job was instead to argue that he should be sentenced to life in prison rather than be put to death. A new investigation goes inside the effort to spare the killer, and the terrible toll it took on the defense team over their four years of work. [The Marshall Project] 

Florida is conducting its own investigation into the man accused of attempting to assassinate former President Donald Trump over the weekend. Governor Ron DeSantis said he believes the state case should take precedence over the federal one; at a news conference on Tuesday, DeSantis questioned if the Justice Department can handle the case fairly. The suspect is being held on two gun charges. [NPR] 

A former director of the National Rifle Association’s Women’s Leadership Forum has sued the gun group, claiming that she was fired after raising concerns about improper spending and lax record-keeping. In a lawsuit filed earlier this month in Virginia state court, attorneys for Apryl Marie Fogel, who led the WLF for six months in 2023, said their client had believed that allegations of financial impropriety at the NRA were a groundless “attack by the left” — but that changed over the course of her employment. Per the suit, Fogel found that the WLF was making wasteful payments to a vendor that provided car and other services; that same vendor, the suit states, kept sensitive NRA donor information easily accessible. The suit also alleges that WLF financial records were haphazardly maintained in violation of nonprofit laws. When Fogel voiced concern, she was retaliated against and ultimately fired, according to the suit. Fogel is asking for her job back and $150,000, her annual salary while WLF director.  —Will Van Sant, staff writer 

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton withdrew an eight-year-old legal opinion on gun bans just weeks after suing the State Fair of Texas over similar restrictions. The fair, which kicks off next week, announced a new policy banning all guns following a shooting at last year’s event. A court hearing to decide whether the State Fair can enforce the new policy is scheduled for tomorrow. [The Texas Tribune/The Dallas Morning News] 

Over the past three years, the FGC-9 — a model of a homemade semiautomatic firearm — has appeared in the hands of drug dealers, freedom fighters, and terrorists across the globe. It’s become so desirable among far-right extremists in Britain that the country has made possessing or sharing the manual to build it a terrorist offense. The FGC-9’s biggest proponent? “Ivan the Troll,” an online persona linked to a 26-year-old Illinois resident. [The New York Times] 

In the wake of the mass shooting at Apalachee High School, Georgia lawmakers are now confronting the question of how to respond to students who make threats. They’re already indicating that they want to take tougher action — but research shows that’s not the best strategy. [ProPublica] 

Local elections directors across the country are beefing up security ahead of Election Day. To protect against political violence, offices are installing bulletproof glass and security cameras. At least one county official is considering purchasing panic buttons for poll workers. [Associated Press] 

The mass shooting across two mushroom farms in Half Moon Bay, California, last January — in which a former resident killed seven people — revealed the brutal conditions those who worked on the farm were living in and spurred elected officials to expedite low-income farmworker housing. But a year and a half after the attacks, survivors are still dealing with trauma, and many are still awaiting permanent homes. [The Guardian]

Correction: Apryl Marie Fogel asks for her job back and $150,000 in the whistleblower retaliation lawsuit she’s filed against the gun group. An earlier version of this post erroneously stated that Fogel asked for either her job back or $150,000.

Data Point

At least 30 — the number of cases, over the past two years, in which defendants used the Supreme Court’s Bruen decision to dismiss criminal charges for violating the felon gun ban. [The Trace]

Non Sequitur

Land of the Flea: A dispatch from “The World’s Longest Yard Sale,” which runs from Addison, Michigan, to Gadsden, Alabama. [The New Yorker] 

This newsletter was compiled by Sunny Sone.

Jennifer Mascia
Jennifer is a senior news writer and founding staffer at The Trace. She previously covered gun violence at The New York Times. In her decade on this beat, she’s covered community gun violence, the intersection of domestic violence and guns, and the growing role of firearms in public life.