The Marshall Project curated news digest

Presented by Alfred A. Knopf Donate Edited by Andrew Cohen View in browser Pick of the News After the shooting in Oregon. The toll from the mass shooting last week at an elementary school in Bend, Oregon, would have been much worse if not for the heroism of a teacher and parent, both of whom confronted the young shooter. The Associated Press Kaylub Giamanco, an Oregon father, is the latest armed civilian to confront a gunman. The Associated Press It was school picture day. Then it was a crime scene. The Oregonian Oregon has relatively strong gun laws. They did not stop this school shooting. The Oregonian Scenes from a vigil for the victims on Friday. OPB Police identified the gunman as Griffin John II, a former special education student at Silver Rail who lived with his mother a half mile from the school. The New York Times Autocracy watch. Trump allies at the Justice Department are no longer even pretending to be neutral, independent observers of the political process as the midterm elections draw near. Federal officials, including Attorney General Todd Blanche, have campaigned at rallies for Republican candidates, authorized a raid on the home of a Democratic member of Congress, and sued California over voter rolls. All of these actions are unprecedented in modern U.S. history. The Guardian More: The Office of Legal Counsel, an opaque unit within the Justice Department, has been weaponized by the Trump administration to enable or justify even the most dubious policies and practices. The Washington Post Immigration nation. Pedro Gutierrez enlisted in the U.S. Army in the hope his service would protect his wife from immigration detention and deportation. It didn’t work. When Giovanna Perez went to an appointment at Naval Air Station in Corpus Christi, Texas to get military identification cards for herself and her children, she was snatched by ICE agents. The Atlantic Hawaii’s congressional delegation wants the Justice Department to stop making it so difficult and expensive for residents to appear at immigration court hearings. States Newsroom Who is going to clean up after deadly Florida hurricanes this season? Migrant workers who have done so in years past say they are fearful about being arrested by ICE agents. The New York Times Bipartisan scorn within the federal judiciary for Trump’s voter data search. Federal judges across the U.S., including several who were nominated by President Donald Trump, have rejected the Justice Department’s lawsuits seeking state voter data. Often, the judges have been blunt in criticizing the lack of evidence offered in support of the administration’s shifting claims. ProPublica Trump and his MAGA allies have ramped up their election-fraud conspiracy theories in advance of the midterm elections. The goal is to sow confusion after Nov. 3. The New York Times California elections officials say the administration’s demands for a review of voting rolls amount to a sloppy “data dump.” The New York Times Another election cycle, another round of “tough-on-crime” campaign ads with racist tropes. Republicans are trying to sink the North Carolina senatorial campaign of Democrat Roy Cooper by linking his past policies as governor to the murder of a woman last year. The suspect in the case is a man with a criminal history who was released from jail while awaiting trial on a misdemeanor charge. There is no evidence that Cooper’s policies had anything to do with the suspect’s release. Meanwhile, all 16 ballot initiatives across the U.S. focusing on bail and sentencing since 2022 have sought to make criminal laws harsher. TMP’s Jamiles Lartey has the latest edition of Closing Argument, our weekly newsletter. The Marshall Project Writing about crime data? Check out new guidance and join our webinar. Journalists and researchers are often asked to contextualize crime data. This data can have serious effects on public policy, funding and efforts to reform the justice system. However, crime statistics ha