News Roundup

Quickly on the heels of last week’s racist mass shooting comes America’s latest tragedy.  On Tuesday, a teenager in Texas killed nineteen elementary school children and two of their teachers with an assault rifle he bought a week prior and the day after his 18th birthday.  While the shooting is the deadliest ever for a school in Texas, surpassing an incident with ten victims at a high school in Santa Fe four years ago, it is only the second-deadliest elementary school shooting in our history.  Twenty-six people died at Sandy Hook a decade ago, twenty of them children.  Keep reading for more news. Response.  In the days after the tragedy in Texas, questions are emerging about the response of law enforcement as reports indicate that nearly 90 minutes elapsed between the shooter, Salvador Ramos, beginning to shoot outside the school and eventually being killed by a tactical unit that breached the classroom where he had barricaded himself.  Social media videos show that prior to the tactical unit arriving, parents pleading with well-armed officers outside of the school to enter the building and engage the shooter, though they did not do so. Gunfire Detection.  CBS 17 reports that the Durham Police Department is implementing ShotSpotter gunfire detection technology as part of a one-year pilot program in the city.  Durham Police Chief Patrice Andrews recently told the City Council that the system will be deployed in areas with high gun violence rates and told CBS 17 that she recognized overpolicing concerns related to [...]