WICHITA, Kan. (KAKE) — Trash littered the Jackie Robinson Pavilion Sunday morning; a plaque with the words ‘FRIENDS OF JACKIE’ had the name ‘Jackie’ crossed out in pink marker — ‘Mark Goston’ written underneath.
“This kind of stuff is always upsetting, no matter where it happens, but it’s particularly annoying when it affects League 42,” the league wrote in a Facebook post. “We have worked hard to improve these facilities from when we started 13 years ago. And there is no comparison.”
This isn’t the first time a League 42 baseball facility has been vandalized. In 2024, Wichita police arrested 45-year-old Ricky Alderete in connection with the theft and burning of a statue of Jackie Robinson in McAdams Park.
The statue was donated to the non-profit baseball group League 42 in 2021. Soon after the theft, the founder and executive director of League 42, Bob Lutz, launched a GoFundMe campaign to raise funds to replace the statue.
The youth baseball league said it received a $100,000 gift from Major League Baseball to replace a statue of Jackie Robinson. The GoFundMe raised a total of $194,780.
After six months without the statue, a new Jackie Robinson statue was unveiled in August 2024.
Now, in light of the recent vandalism at the pavilion, the league is working with the City of Wichita and District 1 councilman Joseph Shepard, according to a Facebook post.
“… we will be discussing ways to combat this nonsense,” League 42 wrote. “I don’t understand why people can’t just leave things alone. We want to share our facilities, and we believe the Jackie Robinson Pavilion is a destination spot for Wichitans and for visitors to our city. But when our citizens do this kind of damage, what are we really showing off?”
KAKE crews have confirmed the trash has been cleaned.
Donald Trump is attempting to select his own citizenry and control who can vote by gathering the personal details of all Americans, Arizona’s top election official has warned.
Adrian Fontes, Arizona’s Democratic secretary of state, fears that the Trump administration’s active efforts to forcibly extract voter files from 30 states including Fontes’s own are part of a bigger plan to gather vital information on all US citizens into a centralised database. “Trump is trying to amass a master list that will allow him to declare someone an enemy of the state,” he said.
In his 19th-floor office in Phoenix, Fontes said that in his view Trump wants to create the equivalent of “apartheid in the United States” and likened his actions to those of his counterpart in North Korea. With personal information on all Americans at his disposal, the president could regulate key aspects of the lives of his opponents, including “shutting off their bank accounts, or keeping them from getting healthcare”.
“This is Donald Trump trying to pick his own voters,” he said.
Fontes won a major victory in his running battle with the Trump administration on Tuesday when a federal judge threw out a lawsuit from the US justice department against Arizona over its refusal to hand over its voter roll. The judge, Susan Brnovich, a Trump appointee, ruled that the Department of Justice was not entitled to the document under federal law.
The suit was part of a push by the DoJ to obtain voter roll information from all 50 states, suing 30 including Arizona that have refused to co-operate. At least 13 states have voluntarily complied with the DoJ’s demands, but many others are resisting.
In those cases where courts have ruled on the dispute – California, Oregon, Michigan, Massachusetts and Rhode Island – all judges have found against the administration. Fontes – who was himself sued after he declined to hand over the data, pointing out that it would be illegal under state law to divulge sensitive personal information about almost 5 million Arizonan voters – has joined that list of vindicated parties.
“This is now the sixth federal court to reach the same conclusion. Arizona acted correctly in refusing this request, and today’s ruling vindicates that decision,” he said.
Fontes was elected secretary of state four years ago as part of a sweep by Democrats of top statewide positions. Katie Hobbs was elected governor and Kris Mayes as attorney general.
All three are now in re-election battles facing Republican challengers who have in varying degrees embraced the lie that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.
Arizona has for years been pivotal to Trump’s efforts to stoke election denial conspiracy theories. Maricopa county, which covers Phoenix, is one of the largest and most electorally consequential swing counties in the country.
In 2020, it was the focus of a fierce battle in which Trump loyalists attempted to declare victory in the face of his defeat to Democratic rival Joe Biden. The Republican-controlled state senate contracted Cyber Ninjas, a private security firm that had no background in election administration, to conduct an audit into Maricopa county’s results.
The audit, which was widely debunked, concluded that Biden had won the election.
Arizona is now back in the crosshairs as the November midterm elections approach. The state has been the subject of at least three federal investigations into its election procedures, with the Trump administration continuing to press unfounded claims that electoral fraud is rife.
The DoJ claims that its data demands aim to root out rampant fraud and voting by noncitizens. Fontes rejects that argument .
“This doesn’t have anything to do with non-citizens, because non-citizens don’t vote. Every study shows that,” he said. “So what you have here is an unprecedented invasion into the privacy of Americans, sold under a false narrative of illegal voting.”
In March the FBI seized a vast stash of digital data that had been compiled by the Cyber Ninjas’ audit of Maricopa county in 2020. Though it is unclear what exactly was in the trove, it is possible that it included details of votes cast and images of actual ballots.
The material was handed over to FBI agents under a federal grand jury subpoena by the Republican president of the state senate, Warren Petersen. Fontes was scathing about Petersen’s decision to cooperate with the subpoena, suggesting it may have broken state data-protection laws.
“He was so quick to turn over the material as a political favor to Donald Trump,” Fontes said. “Clearly he had no intention of protecting Arizona voters or legal processes.”
Petersen’s compliance with the FBI subpoena is likely to be a factor in the mid-term election for Arizona attorney general. He is currently the frontrunner to become the Republican candidate challenging Mayes, the incumbent Democrat.
The third federal investigation into Arizona elections is being conducted by Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), the investigative arm of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). It is also taking a renewed look at the 2020 presidential election result in a further bizarre move to relitigate a contest that was settled more than five years ago.
“It’s like herpes,” Fontes said, referring to the perpetual resurfacing of the election denial conspiracy in Arizona. “It just keeps coming back. And I just don’t think the state, or the nation, deserves that.”
Trump’s latest ploy to wrestle control over elections from the states is his executive order last month that tries to limit mail-in voting by creating a national voter file to which the US postal service would have to defer before delivering mail ballots. The order, which is being challenged as unconstitutional, is especially sensitive in Arizona, where 80% of votes are cast by mail in a system devised decades ago, ironically, by the Republican party.
“This is a bald-faced attempt at completely controlling American democracy according to the whims of one political actor, and that’s not just un-American, it’s absolutely anti-American,” Fontes said.
Fontes is gearing up for his own potentially bruising re-election battle in November, in which he is likely to be competing against an election denialist. The two Republicans vying for their party’s candidacy in the secretary of state’s race both have election-denial track records.
Alexander Kolodin, a lawyer, was placed on probation by the state bar association after he filed lawsuits challenging Biden’s 2020 victory that a judge slammed as being full of “gossip and innuendo”.
The other candidate, the former chair of the Arizona Republican party, Gina Swoboda, was the Trump campaign’s director of operations on election day in 2020. She claimed in a lawsuit that was dismissed for lack of evidence that more than 1 million ineligible voters may have been on the rolls.
Fontes said he was “cautiously optimistic” that he and his Democratic peers would sweep the state again in November. But he conceded that “we have to be extra vigilant”.
“We have to spend every single day from now until November focused on communicating as clearly as we can with every Arizona voter,” he said.
Two factors were in play this midterm cycle that would make re-election more difficult, he said: unlike in 2022, there is no US senate race in Arizona this year, so there is less of a draw to attract Democratic voters to the polls.
The other factor he pointed to was that since 2022, the rightwing activist group Turning Point USA has grown in influence. Turning Point, whose leader Charlie Kirk was killed by a gunman in September, is headquartered in Arizona and in Fontes’s view has largely surplanted the old Republican party in the state.
“We’ve got to be cautious because we’re going to be running against the conspiracy theories, lies and misrepresentations,” he said. “The stakes of this election are enormous, and every voter will be impacted by the outcome.”
I love this video. John Fugelsang is a wonderful person to elaborate on the bible and he does so as a follower of Jesus, not Paul or the Old Testament. His mother was a nun and his father was a monk and the way he describes his father wearing his robes is as the Christian jedi of Flatbush. He explains how those using the bible to attack or bash others including the LGBTQ+ are not following Jesus that they are following Paul. He explains clearly how Jesus brought a new covenant for the people doing away with the old one in Leviticus. He explained how those using the bible to bash others and not feed & clothe the stranger/ immigrant are totally against what Jesus preached. He also mentioned how those trying to force the Old Testament of the bible in schools never want the words of Jesus hung in classrooms in public schools, they never want the sermon on the mount posted on the walls. Those kind of people only want authoritarian laws or do and dont do pushed on kids. Enjoy the video, I listen to him on The Daily Beans (news with swearing) friday newscast and his Sirius talk show. Hugs
As you know, by now, Todd, Blanche, Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer and current acting Attorney General, is a political hack.
If you had read that someone was going to prison in another country for posting an image of seashells that spelled out 8647, you would think that it was from an authoritarian state. If this were North Korea, would James Comey be put to death by anti-aircraft fire?
Pam Bondi, Blanche’s predecessor, was fired for what many believe was for being too slow to prosecute Donald Trump’s enemies. She had already indicted James Comey once before, which was basically laughed out of court, and never had even the slightest possibility of ever going to trial.
Participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) fell by more than 3 million people (8 percent) nationwide between July 2025 and January 2026. The drop followed the enactment of H.R.1, the Republican megabill that made unprecedented cuts to the program. SNAP typically expands to meet need and then shrinks when economic conditions improve. It took over three years for the caseload to drop by over 3 million people (or 7 percent) between its peak in December 2012 and February 2016, during the recovery following the Great Recession.
But economic conditions haven’t been improving as the number of people receiving SNAP has plummeted in recent months, representing the sharpest decline in decades. The last time there was such a steep decrease in participation in such a short period of time (other than temporary spikes following natural disasters) was nearly three decades ago, after Congress enacted very deep cuts to SNAP (then the Food Stamp Program) in 1996. SNAP participation dropped by 9.4 percent (2.2 million people) in the six months between March and September 1997.
SNAP participation has fallen in every state and in some, the drop is particularly alarming. (snip-MORE)
Leave it to Donald Trump to have to be taught about checks and balances by a king.
Donald Trump is enamored of King Charles and the British monarchy, even while disliking the British government. Donald Trump is envious because he wants to be a king. For most people, being president would be enough. (snip-MORE)
You might remember last year the documentary I’m involved in, Democracy Under Siege, was having trouble finding a U.S. distributor although it was received enthusiastically overseas. Well, we’re going rogue and here’s your opportunity to watch it for free from May 1-4. Sign up here.
* Also, Laura Nix and I will be speaking with the satirist and free speech defender Andy Borowitz on his podcast May 3rd. Don’t miss it!
The Secret Service has been praised endlessly for the job they did Saturday night, protecting Donald Trump. They did everything they could to make the ballroom at the Washington Hilton a safe space for Trump, and you must admit, they succeeded. Not one comedian got into the room.
What? Did you think I was talking about a shooter? (snip-MORE)
This guest is an immigration attorney with expertise in ICE tactics and in ICE detention. She dispels the misunderstanding and the myths created by the tRump administartion. These detentions are civil detentions not criminal and entering the country with out inspection is a class B misdemeanor. Another thing she mentions is the ever-increasing costs for detention which is currently $200 a day per detainee and there are over 70 thousand detainees. She gives a lot of other useful to know information including the brutality in the detention centers. For example they are taking detainees out in the Everglades and forcing them to stand with hands shackled in the hot sun being eaten by misketoes and bugs. They are putting people in “hot boxes” and leaving them there in the hot Florida sun with no water or medical treatment when they are let out. She describes many more examples. Hugs
Katie Blankenship, an immigration attorney from Sanctuary of the South, a grassroots legal services organization that provides critical, affordable legal defense to immigrant families affected by detention, deportation, and abuse, joins Sam to discuss abuses at the Alligator Alcatraz ICE detention center in Florida. To find resources or ways to help those targeted by ICE in your area you can visit Freedom for immigrants, American Immigration Council or visit the ACLU to find your local affiliate.
*** Personal note*** I ran out of steam early yesterday. I only went back to bed for an hour in the morning, but by 3:30 pm, between the pain and being so tired I went to bed before 4 pm. I got up about 5:30 am. Hugs
Russia began the campaign against LGBTQ+ people by first targeting trans people as a threat to children. Then once the people got used to that line they claimed that any mention of non-cis non-straight way of living was sexualizing kids and so a threat to them. Mentioning or showing a gay person was equated with showing a kid hardcore porn. Fully nude bodies. It worked in their society. That is the play book the right wing haters / Christian nationalists have used against trans people here. How soon until they try to go the entire way to force the entire country / society to be straight and cis and that Christianity be the national religion enforced by white men who force those around them to follow their personal church doctrines. But what these nut jobs really want and understand is removing all mention and signs of being not cis or straight won’t stop LGBTQ+ people from existing. Gay, lesbian, bisexual, questioning / queer / nonbinary, and all others not straight or cis are born to straight cis parents. What these outstanding moral Christians like Congress person Randy Fine from Florida want is that non-straight and non-cis kids be harassed and assaulted like when he was in school making them afraid to come out or be themselves publicly. In other words these haters want the facade of a straight cis country such as when one of the presidents of Iran said they did not have any gay people in his country ignoring a well know community that was there. They want anyone not like them to be afraid to live their lives in case they are discovered. They think that will please their god. The god who they believe created all people also created the LGBTQ+ ones as well. They think that the all knowing god will not know people are faking it due to fear and that they will be rewarded for causing that fear in the LGBTQ+ community. Very Christian of them. Hugs
The designation could mean anybody associated with the group risks years behind bars for supporting an extremist organization — akin to terrorism charges under the nation’s criminal code.
A gay rights activist wearing a headpiece walks ahead of a squad of gay rights activists, during a traditional May Day rally in St.Petersburg, Russia, Thursday, May 1, 2014. The poster reads : ‘Love is stronger than war!’ (AP Photo, File)
A Russian court on Monday labelled the country’s top LGBTQ rights group as “extremist,” effectively outlawing the organization and paving the way to prosecute its supporters.
Russia has for years targeted LGBTQ organizations but has become even more hostile since launching its full-scale assault of Ukraine in 2022, massively accelerating the country’s hardline conservative turn.
On Monday, a court in St. Petersburg ruled in favor of a case brought by the Russian justice ministry to brand the Russian LGBT Network — a top LGBTQ rights nonprofit — “extremist.”
“The public movement has been designated as an extremist organization, and its activities are banned in Russia,” the court’s press service said on Telegram.
The hearing was held behind closed doors.
The designation could mean anybody associated with the group risks years behind bars for supporting an extremist organization — akin to terrorism charges under Russia’s criminal code.
Amnesty International in February slammed the justice ministry’s move to seek the label.
“This move reflects a deliberate strategy by the Kremlin to legitimize and weaponize homophobia in its assault on dissent and equality,” said Marie Struthers, Amnesty International’s Eastern Europe and Central Asia director.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has for years denounced anything that goes against what he calls “traditional family values” as un-Russian and influenced by the West.
In 2023, Russia’s Supreme Court banned what it called the “international social LGBT movement” as an “extremist organisation”.
As part of the crackdown, Russia has in recent years targeted LGBTQ clubs and bars, raiding them and arresting owners.
Courts have also issued fines and short-term jail sentences to people displaying LGBTQ “symbols,” such as clothes, jewelry or posters featuring the rainbow flag.
Political violence is on the rise — making the job more dangerous for state lawmakers and posing new challenges for state law enforcement officials.
Every high-profile act of violence sets off new waves of threats and fears of more — the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk in September sent chills down the spines of elected officials throughout the country. But Utah, where he was killed, was already ahead of the curve on addressing threats to lawmakers and high-profile public officials.
Nine years earlier, it had set up a new unit to track and prevent violence against public officials.
The unit follows a four-step process, said Taylor Keys, a spokesperson for the state Department of Public Safety: It receives and identifies reports of threats and concerning behaviors, gathers the facts, assesses the individual’s risk of posing a real physical threat, and then manages the risk with intervention and case management.
But many states aren’t as proactive and prepared as Utah. Most state legislatures are in session only part-time, and many of the state enforcement agencies charged with protecting them are stretched thin and lack standardized procedures for reporting threats, collecting data and conducting regular training.
A spate of high-profile violent attacks over the past year threw this reality into stark relief.
And for some lawmakers, the environment is becoming untenable: Two recent reports show that harassment, abuse and violence are leading factors driving women and younger legislators, especially, to exit office.
State legislatures shape consequential policy and serve as a critical pipeline for higher office. But serving in office and entering the pipeline to power poses increasingly high risks to personal safety, especially for groups already underrepresented in the halls of power. While being a state lawmaker is a part-time job with a part-time salary in most states, lawmakers can’t opt out of being a full-time public figure.
“Elected and appointed officials live in a risk environment by nature of their job and their outward, public-facing positions,” said former Lt. Col. Tim Cameron of the Wyoming Highway Patrol, who spoke to The 19th in 2025 before he retired from the agency after more than 46 years in law enforcement. “Within the last year and a half to two years, that’s moved into a threat environment.”
The 19th spoke with experts and reached out to state-level law enforcement agencies in all 50 states to capture a comprehensive picture of the scope of political violence against state lawmakers and how law enforcement is responding. Officials in a dozen states told The 19th how they identify and respond to threats, what data they collect, and how they’re adapting their responses and procedures to an ever-evolving landscape.
As political violence is on the rise, many states are scrambling to keep pace. Political violence, Cameron said, was a major topic of discussion at the International Association of Chiefs of Police conference he attended in 2025.
“Anyone charged with executive protection is really looking closely at what they’re doing, how they’re doing it, and looking to utilize technology to leverage that in every way they can,” he said. “So it is going to be a challenge moving forward. And nobody has enough people.”
A February report from the nonprofit organization Future Caucus, based on interviews and surveys with 89 young lawmakers in 31 states, found that threats of violence “have become a serious deterrent to both candidate recruitment and retention,” especially for women, lawmakers of color and LGBTQ+ lawmakers.
“This is a four-alarm fire,” said Layla Zaidane, the president and CEO of Future Caucus, which supports young state lawmakers in bridging divides and working on policy across the political aisle.
“They can stomach the low pay. They can stomach no staff. They can handle even trying to figure out the toxic polarization and transcending that,” Zaidane said of young lawmakers. “But political violence was the thing that, when you add it all together, was the decider of: ‘I don’t know if I’m going to run again, I don’t know if this is worth it.’”
The rise in violent incidents is having an outsized impact on women, who make up half of the United States population but account for only a third of state lawmakers; even fewer women of color are represented in the political arena.
And when it comes to hyperpolarization and the increasingly toxic and hostile climate in state capitols, “women bear the brunt of this, multi-fold, compared to their male peers,” said Aparna Ghosh, the founder and executive director of the Ghosh Innovation Lab, a nonpartisan organization that conducts research and builds tools to support diverse and representative state legislatures.
A report the Ghosh Innovation Lab published last summer, based on 60 interviews and a nationally representative survey of over 300 women legislators, concluded that the assassination of Hortman “exposed a crisis that has been building for years.” Women lawmakers, the report found, “face systematic harassment, threats, and violence that compromise their safety, well-being, and democratic participation.”
The report found that 93 percent of women lawmakers said they experienced some form of harm or abuse in office, 59 percent said it disrupted their legislative duties and 32 percent said it impacted their desire to stay in office.
“It’s not just about an incident, but it’s about the everyday things that add up that push them out of office,” Ghosh said. “This is a huge problem for democracy, because this constant harm that women are facing is eroding the intent to run for office, so it’s eroding democracy in some way.”
(Emily Scherer for The 19th)
In the wake of Hortman’s assassination, several states have weighed legislation that would allow lawmakers to have their home addresses and other identifying information removed from public records. And as federal campaign spending on security expenses has continued to climb into the millions, 25 states now officially or informally authorize state candidates to use campaign funds for personal security, according to an analysis from the nonpartisan Vote Mama Foundation.
The role of law enforcement has also come under scrutiny, with the Ghosh Innovation Lab report concluding that state capitols and law enforcement “systematically fail to protect women legislators.”
The top safety shortcomings identified by women legislators surveyed for the report were a lack of training in handling threats (53 percent), the absence of a panic button for reporting incidents (46 percent) and unclear reporting procedures (42 percent). They also cited inadequate technological solutions, insufficient legal support, buildings feeling overly exposed, too few security officers and poor coordination with law enforcement.
“Whatever training they’re getting is their own responsibility, and that’s part of where the system breaks down,” said Ghosh. “It’s two things: One is that we’re not a proactive system, we react to incidents, that is one huge thing. And the second is it feels like safety and security is a legislator problem, not an institutional problem.”
At the federal level, the U.S. Capitol Police (USCP) protects members of Congress, often in coordination with local law enforcement, and issues regular public assessments indicating that threats against federal lawmakers are on the rise.
But far less is known about the risk environment and security landscape for state lawmakers.
States have widely varying levels of security for their state capitol complexes and different open carry rules. A 2024 review from the Wisconsin Legislative Audit Bureau found that 39 states use metal detectors in their capitol buildings, 31 use X-ray machines to scan packages and belongings and 10 require visitors to have photo identification.
Many states have dedicated capitol police forces, specialized units within state police or highway patrols responsible for protecting lawmakers and executive officials, or both. Local sheriff’s offices and police departments also respond to reports of threats from state lawmakers.
“The big problem is that there’s no standardization in the protocols and processes, and this is the gray zone where the system breaks down,” Ghosh said.
To get a clearer picture of the protection landscape, The 19th asked these questions to state agencies responsible for protecting state lawmakers in all 50 states:
What steps should a lawmaker take if they receive a threat?
What are the agency’s processes for identifying and responding to threats?
Does the agency collect data or produce threat assessments on threats to public officials, including state lawmakers? If not, are there plans to start collecting that data and/or to make it public, as the U.S. Capitol Police does?
Has the agency implemented or plans to implement any additional security measures, safety plans or training for state lawmakers/capitol protectees in the wake of the Hortman and Kirk shootings?
Representatives of law enforcement agencies in 27 states responded to The 19th’s inquiries. Representatives of agencies in four states declined to comment, and 19 did not respond to requests for comment. Of the agencies that responded, many declined to share specific security plans or details but said they were committed to ensuring the security of state elected officials and those working at and visiting state capitol complexes.
The basics are the same: All agencies said lawmakers should immediately report a threat to a state, capitol or local law enforcement agency. But where lawmakers report threats can vary depending on whether the legislature is in session and the nature of the threat: a lawmaker might report a threat to the state capitol police or the highway patrol if the legislature is in session, or to their local police or sheriff’s department if they’re in their home county.
All the law enforcement officials emphasized that keeping evidence of threats is important.
Chris Loftis, a spokesperson for the Washington State Patrol, also said lawmakers should preserve “all evidence, including emails, voicemails, and social media posts” and are “advised not to engage directly with the individual making the threat.”
States use different methods to identify and trace threats. Many said they work with other agencies to monitor, identify and respond to threats. New York State Police spokesman Beau Duffy said the agency has a team of social media analysts who identify threats. Sgt. Ricardo Breceda of the New Mexico State Police said they use a variety of sources, including law enforcement databases.
“Our response depends on the nature and severity of the threat and can range from routine follow-up investigations to the activation of specialized tactical teams if necessary,” Breceda said.
Some officials and courts have found that some harassing and abrasive rhetoric directed at public officials falls under the First Amendment’s free speech protections, a finding that has at times frustrated lawmakers. Zaidane pointed to a 2021 case in which a man charged with making a threat to a Michigan state legislator’s office was acquitted after his lawyer said he was “just blowing off steam.”
“I think, at a minimum, better enforcement of laws and coordination with law enforcement would make lawmakers feel like the system has their back,” Zaidane said. “Like there are still bright lines that we should not cross in America and that we are committed to upholding those.”
Another thing lawmakers want more of, Ghosh said, is data.
For over 20 years, the U.S. Capitol Police has published annual public threat assessments detailing the number of threats they investigate. In new data released in January, the USCP’s Threat Assessment Section reported investigating nearly 15,000 “concerning statements, behaviors, and communications” against lawmakers, their families, staff and the U.S. Capitol complex in 2025, marking the third consecutive year the USCP has investigated more threats.
But most state law enforcement and state capitol security agencies either don’t collect or don’t publish such statistics. Utah is one of just a few states in the country that collects statewide data on threats to state lawmakers and produces assessments. The lack of comprehensive data from official sources makes it difficult to know the scope and scale of political violence against state lawmakers.
“They want that kind of tracking and monitoring system,” Ghosh said of women lawmakers. “They want security briefings annually.”
Some state agencies told The 19th they don’t have a full picture of how threats are reported and investigated across their states because jurisdictions respond differently to threat reports. Several others said they do centrally collect that data but don’t release it for security reasons.
“We collect data, but sometimes we’re not aware of the other complaints that potentially could be made to the sheriff of whatever respective county,” said Cameron of the Wyoming Highway Patrol.
Some state agencies share data with other law enforcement authorities, including through fusion centers.
Ghosh said women lawmakers also want more official safety training from law enforcement — many told her that they spend thousands of dollars out of pocket for self-defense and security training.
“They want systems to back them up and say, ‘We’re going to prepare you for what’s coming,’ even if it doesn’t happen,” Ghosh said.
Many states are working to expand security as well as training for lawmakers in the wake of the Minnesota shooting, though most declined to share specifics.
Cameron said that in Wyoming, the conversation about improving protective operations “never stops.” The state Highway Patrol has a trooper focused on protective intelligence who attended a threat intelligence course at the U.S. Marshals Service headquarters in Crystal City, Virginia, and investigates threats against lawmakers, he said.
“We’re constantly training our people. We recently instituted a special response team, more or less a SWAT unit, but they’re cross-trained to do executive protection,” he added. “Sometimes we’ll activate some of those members, so our [executive protection division] has additional personnel, either for advanced work or on site work or escort work.”
He said he’d like to see more adoption of drones and drone technology, an area where law enforcement in the United States is “behind,” to protect the state capitol and lawmakers.
Ghosh said the women lawmakers she’s spoken to need three things to carry out their work: to feel prepared, protected and nurtured.
“It’s simple things, right?” she said. “Their safety needs to feel well supported and ready to do the work that they’re meant to do. They want these three things, and when it breaks down is when they’re unable to do this work.”
Scottie's Playtime 