A lawyer for the maker of the video game Call of Duty argued Friday that a judge should dismiss a lawsuit brought by families of the victims of the Robb Elementary School attack in Uvalde, Texas, saying the contents of the war game are protected by the First Amendment.

The families sued Call of Duty maker Activision and Meta Platforms, which owns Instagram, saying that the companies bear responsibility for promoting products used by the teen gunman.

Three sets of parents who lost children in the shooting were in the audience at the Los Angeles hearing.

Activision lawyer Bethany Kristovich told Superior Court Judge William Highberger that the “First Amendment bars their claims, period full stop.”

“The issues of gun violence are incredibly difficult,” Kristovich said. “The evidence in this case is not.”

She argued that the case has little chance of prevailing if it continues, because courts have repeatedly held that “creators of artistic works, whether they be books, music, movies, TV or video games, cannot be held legally liable for the acts of their audience.”

The lawsuit, one of many involving Uvalde families, was filed last year on the second anniversary of one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history. The gunman killed 19 students and two teachers. Officers finally confronted and shot him after waiting more than an hour to enter the fourth-grade classroom.

Kimberly Rubio, whose 10-year-old daughter Lexi was killed in the shooting, was among the parents who came from Texas to Southern California, where Activision is based, for the hearing.

“We traveled all this way, so we need answers,” Rubio said outside the courthouse. “It’s our hope that the case will move forward so we can get those answers.”

An attorney for the families argued during the hearing that Call of Duty exceeds its First Amendment protections by moving into marketing.

“The basis of our complaint is not the existence of Call of Duty,” Katie Mesner-Hage told the judge. “It is using Call of Duty as a platform to market weapons to minors.”

The plaintiffs’ lawyers showed contracts and correspondence between executives at Activison and gunmakers whose products, they said, are clearly and exactly depicted in the game despite brand names not appearing.

Mesner-Hage said the documents show that they actually prefer being unlabeled because “it helps shield them from the implication that they are marketing guns to minors,” while knowing that players will still identify and seek out the weapons.

Kristovich said there is no evidence that the kind of product placement and marketing the plaintiffs are talking about happened in any of the editions of the game the shooter played.

The families have also filed a lawsuit against Daniel Defense, which manufactured the AR-style rifle used in the May 24, 2022, shooting. Koskoff argued that a replica of the rifle clearly appears on a splash page for Call of Duty.

Josh Koskoff, the families’ Connecticut-based lead attorney, also represented families of nine Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims in a lawsuit against gunmaker Remington and got a $73 million lawsuit settlement.

He invoked Sandy Hook several times in his arguments, saying the shooters there and in Uvalde shared the same gaming obsession.

Koskoff said the Uvalde shooter experienced “the absorption and the loss of self in Call of Duty.”

He said that immersion was so deep that the shooter searched online for how to obtain an armored suit that he didn’t know only exists in the game.

Koskoff played a clip from Call of Duty Modern Warfare, the game the shooter played, with a first-person shooter gunning down opponents.

The shots echoed loudly in the courtroom, and several people in the audience slowly shook their heads.

“Call of Duty is in a class of its own,” Koskoff said.

Kristovich argued for Activision that the game, despite its vast numbers of players, can be tied to only a few of the many U.S. mass shootings.

“The game is incredibly common. It appears in a scene on ‘The Office,’” she said. She added that it is ridiculous to assert that “this is such a horrible scourge that your honor has to essentially ban it through this lawsuit.”

Highberger told the lawyers he was not leaning in either direction before the hearing. He gave no time frame for when he will rule, but a quick decision is not expected.

The judge did tell the plaintiffs’ lawyers that their description of Activision’s actions seemed like deliberate malfeasance, where their lawsuit alleges negligence. He said that was the biggest hurdle they needed to clear.

“Their conduct created a risk of exactly what happened,” Mesner-Hage told him. “And we represent the people who are exactly the foreseeable victims of that conduct.”

Meta’s attorneys will make arguments on a similar motion next month.

Los Angeles students and teachers return to class for the new academic year Thursday under a cloud of apprehension after a summer filled with immigration raids and amid worries that schools could become a target in the Trump administration’s aggressive crackdown.

Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent Alberto Carvalho has urged immigration authorities not to conduct enforcement activity within a two-block radius around schools starting an hour before the school day begins and until one hour after it classes let out.

“Hungry children, children in fear, cannot learn well,” Carvalho said in a news conference.

He also announced a number of measures intended to protect students and families, including adding or altering bus routes to accommodate more students. The district is to distribute a family preparedness packet that includes know-your-rights information, emergency contact updates and tips on designating a backup caregiver in case a parent is detained.

The sprawling district, which covers more than two dozen cities, is the nation’s second largest with more than 500,000 students. According to the teachers’ union, 30,000 students are immigrants, and an estimated quarter of them are without legal status.

Federal immigration enforcement near schools causes concern

While immigration agents have not detained anyone inside a school, a 15-year-old boy was pulled from a car and handcuffed outside Arleta High School in northern Los Angeles on Monday, Carvalho said.

He had significant disabilities and was released after a bystander intervened in the case of “mistaken identity,” the superintendent said.

“This is the exact type of incident that traumatizes our communities; it cannot repeat itself,” he added.

Administrators at two elementary schools previously denied entry to officials from the Department of Homeland Security in April, and immigration agents have been seen in vehicles outside schools.
DHS did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

Carvalho said that while staffers and district police officers cannot interfere with immigration enforcement and do not have jurisdiction beyond school property, they have had conversations with federal agents parked in front of schools that resulted in them leaving.

The district is partnering with local law enforcement in some cities and forming a “rapid response” network to disseminate information about the presence of federal agents, he said.
Educators worry about attendance

Teachers say they are concerned some students might not show up the first day.

Lupe Carrasco Cardona, a high school social studies and English teacher at the Roybal Learning Center, said attendance saw a small dip in January when President Donald Trump took office.

The raids ramped up in June right before graduations, putting a damper on ceremonies. One raid at a Home Depot near MacArthur Park, an area with many immigrant families from Central America, took place the same morning as an 8th grade graduation at a nearby middle school.

“People were crying, for the actual graduation ceremony there were hardly any parents there,” Cardona said.

The next week, at her high school graduation, the school rented two buses to transport parents to the ceremony downtown. Ultimately many of the seats were empty, unlike other graduations.

One 11th grader, who spoke on the condition that her last name not be published because she is in the country without legal permission and fears being targeted, said she is afraid to return to school.

“Instead of feeling excited, really what I’m feeling is concern,” said Madelyn, a 17-year-old from Central America. “I am very, very scared, and there is a lot of pressure.”

She added that she takes public transportation to school but fears being targeted on the bus by immigration agents because of her skin color.

“We are simply young people with dreams who want to study, move forward and contribute to this country as well,” she said.

Madelyn joined a club that provides support and community for immigrant students and said she intends to persevere in that work.

President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he will impose a 100% tariff on computer chips, raising the specter of higher prices for electronics, autos, household appliances and other essential products dependent on the processors powering the digital age.

“We’ll be putting a tariff of approximately 100% on chips and semiconductors,” Trump said in the Oval Office while meeting with Apple CEO Tim Cook. “But if you’re building in the United States of America, there’s no charge.”

The announcement came more than three months after Trump temporarily exempted most electronics from his administration’s most onerous tariffs.

The Republican president said companies that make computer chips in the U.S. would be spared the import tax. During the COVID-19 pandemic, a shortage of computer chips increased the price of autos and contributed to higher inflation.

Investors seemed to interpret the potential tariff exemptions as a positive for Apple and other major tech companies that have been making huge financial commitments to manufacture more chips and other components in the U.S..

Big Tech already has made collective commitments to invest about $1.5 trillion in the U.S. since Trump moved back into the White House in January. That figure includes a $600 billion promise from Apple after the iPhone maker boosted its commitment by tacking another $100 billion on to a previous commitment made in February.

Now the question is whether the deal brokered between Cook and Trump will be enough to insulate the millions of iPhones made in China and India from the tariffs that the administration has already imposed and reduce the pressure on the company to raise prices on the new models expected to be unveiled next month.

Wall Street certainly seems to think so. After Apple’s stock price gained 5% in Wednesday regular trading sessions, the shares rose by another 3% in extended trading after Trump announced some tech companies won’t be hit with the latest tariffs while Cook stood alongside him.

The shares of AI chipmaker Nvidia, which also has recently made big commitments to the U.S., rose slightly in extended trading to add to the $1 trillion gain in market value the Silicon Valley company has made since the start of Trump’s second administration.

The stock price of computer chip pioneer Intel, which has fallen on hard times, also climbed in extended trading.

Inquiries sent to chip makers Nvidia and Intel were not immediately answered. The chip industry’s main trade group, the Semiconductor Industry Association, declined to comment on Trump’s latest tariffs.

Demand for computer chips has been climbing worldwide, with sales increasing 19.6% in the year-ended in June, according to the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics organization.

Trump’s tariff threats mark a significant break from existing plans to revive computer chip production in the U.S. that were drawn up during the administration of President Joe Biden.

Since taking over from Biden, Trump has been deploying tariffs to incentivize more domestic production. Essentially, the president is betting that the threat of dramatically higher chip costs would force most companies to open factories domestically, despite the risk that tariffs could squeeze corporate profits and push up prices for mobile phones, TVs and refrigerators.

By contrast, the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act that Biden signed into law in 2022 provided more than $50 billion to support new computer chip plants, fund research and train workers for the industry. The mix of funding support, tax credits and other financial incentives were meant to draw in private investment, a strategy that Trump has vocally opposed.

Two Colorado deputies have been disciplined for violating state law by helping federal agents make immigration arrests, and their sheriff says officers from other agencies have done the same.

One of the deputies, Alexander Zwinck, was sued by Colorado’s attorney general last week, after his cooperation with federal immigration agents on a drug task force was revealed following the June arrest of a college student from Brazil with an expired visa.

Following an internal investigation, a second Mesa County Sheriff’s Office deputy and task force member, Erik Olson, was also found to have shared information. The two deputies used a Signal chat to relay information to federal agents, according to documents released Wednesday by the sheriff’s office.

Zwinck was placed on three weeks of unpaid leave, and Olson was given two weeks of unpaid leave, Mesa County Sheriff Todd Rowell said in a statement. Both were removed from the task force.

Two supervisors also were disciplined. One was suspended without pay for two days, and another received a letter of reprimand. A third supervisor received counseling.

State laws push back against Trump crackdown

The lawsuit and disciplinary actions come as lawmakers in Colorado and other Democratic-led states have crafted legislation intended to push back against President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.

Since Trump took office, pro-immigrant bills have advanced through legislatures in Illinois, Vermont, California, Connecticut and other states. The measures include stronger protections for immigrants in housing, employment and police encounters.

Trump has enlisted hundreds of state and local law enforcement agencies to help identify immigrants in the U.S. illegally and detain them for potential deportation. The Republican also relaxed longtime rules restricting immigration enforcement near schools, churches and hospitals.

Zwinck was sued under a new state law signed by Gov. Jared Polis about two weeks before the arrest of the student from Brazil. It bars local government employees including law enforcement from sharing identifying information about people with federal immigration officials. Previously, only state agencies were barred from doing that. It’s one of a series of laws limiting the state’s involvement in immigration enforcement passed over the years that has drawn criticism and a lawsuit from the federal government.

The U.S. Department of Justice has also sued Illinois and New York, as well as several cities in those states and New Jersey, alleging their policies violate the U.S. Constitution or federal immigration laws.

Officers say they were following established procedures

Zwinck and Olson told officials they thought they were operating according to long-standing procedures.

However, the internal investigation found they had both received and read two emails prior to the passage of the new law about previous limits on cooperation with immigration officials. The most recent was sent on Jan. 30, 2025, after an official for Homeland Security Investigations, part of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, had asked state and local law enforcement officers at a law enforcement meeting to contact HSI or ICE if they arrested a person for a violent crime who was believed not to be a citizen, the investigation documents said. The email said not to contact HSI or ICE.

Zwinck said he didn’t know about the new law and was not interested in immigration enforcement.

“When I was out there, I wanted to find drugs, guns and bad guys,” Zwinck said at a July 23 disciplinary hearing. “And sending that information to HSI they provided the ability to give me real time background information on the person I was in contact with,” he said.

Olson, who said he had been with the sheriff’s office 18 years, testified at his disciplinary hearing that it was “standard practice” to send information up to federal agents during traffic stops.

“It was routine for ICE to show up on the back end of a traffic stop to do their thing,” Olson said. “I truly thought what we were doing was condoned by our supervision and lawful.”

A lawyer at a law firm listed as representing both deputies, Michael Lowe, did not immediately return a telephone call or email seeking comment.

Rowell said drug task force members from other law enforcement agencies, including the Colorado State Patrol, also shared information with immigration agents on the Signal chat. The state patrol denied the claim.

The sheriff faulted Attorney General Phil Weiser for filing the lawsuit against Zwinck before a local internal investigation was complete. He called on the Democrat, who is running for governor, to drop it.

“As it stands, the lawsuit filed by the Attorney General’s Office sends a demoralizing message to law enforcement officers across Colorado — that the law may be wielded selectively and publicly for maximum political effect rather than applied fairly and consistently,” he said.

Weiser said last week that he was investigating whether other officers in the chat violated the law.

Spokesperson Lawrence Pacheco said Weiser was presented with evidence of a “blatant violation of state law” and had to act.

“The attorney general has a duty to enforce state laws and protect Coloradans and he’ll continue to do so,” Pacheco said.