The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "Washington county" ...
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'Perversion files' show locals helped cover up
On June 14, 2012, following a civil trial, the Oregon Supreme Court ruled that decades of the Boy Scouts’ confidential files would be made public. They would first need to allow the Scouts and plaintiffs’ attorneys time to redact the files of sensitive information. Given a months-long head start, editor Terry Petty and reporter Nigel Duara began the process of negotiating the unredacted files from a longtime source. The negotiations took two months and required the guarantee of an embargo. In August, they received a CD with 20,000 pages of perversion files. Duara and Petty combed through the files, looking for patterns. The Scouts’ concealment of the abuse has been reported before, beginning with an exhaustive series in the early 1990s from the Washington Times. But the AP team found something else: Locals helped. County attorneys, newspaper editors, mayors and police officers were all detailed in the files helping keep the Scouts’ name out of charging documents and off the front page. Indeed, a local county attorney proudly reported to Scouts leaders that he quashed an investigation in which a man confessed to sexually abusing two brothers “to protect the name of Scouting.”
Tags: Boy scouts; abuse; record
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The Crown Topples: The Swift Rise and Brutal Fall of Maryland's Latin Kings
An inside look at what happened when a national gang infiltrated two suburban counties. Major findings: in 2007 and 2008, the brother of a brutal gang member started a new Latin Kings "tribe" in Maryland and Washington D.C. The Royal Lion Tribe grew to nearly 200 members and initiated a bloody rivalry with the local branch of MS=13. A group of federal agents took down the gang from the inside after a minor crime brought the new gang into the spotlight.
Tags: Gangs; Gang Violence; Maryland; Royal Lion Tribe; Latin Kings;
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Prium
A report on the dramatic rise and fall of Prium, a Pierce County, Washington State real estate company which lurched into one of the largest bankruptcy filings in state history.
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Prince George's County Coverage
In Maryland's Prince George's County, county Executive Jack B. Johnson "awarded 51 county contracts totaling nearly $3.3 million to 15 of his friends and political supporters, some of whom had no expertise in the field." The Washington Post investigates Johnson's dealings, further finding that he and other officials from the same county "used county-issued credit cards to pay for personal expenses totaling thousands of dollars," including plane tickets, clothing, video rentals and prescription drugs. These charges were seldom repaid in the county's mandated deadline of 10 business days.
Tags: Prince George's County; Jack B. Johnson; personal credit-card usage
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Jim West: A Spokesman-Review Investigative Report
From his days as a Boy Scout leader to sheriff's deputy in the 1970s, through his career in the Washington legislature in the 1980s and 1990s, until becoming mayor of Spokane in January 2004, Jim West abused his positions of trust. The investigation showed that West had sexually molested boys as a sheriff's deputy and Boy Scouts leader, that as a secretly gay Republican state legislator he pushed anti-gay legislation and that as mayor of Spokane he offered City Hall jobs and appointments to teenagers and young men he met on a gay web site.
Tags: FOIA; sexual molestation; sexual abuse; Spokane; City Hall; Jim West; Boy Scouts of America; Washington State Legislature; homosexual; Spokane County Sheriff's Department
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Parrots in Peril
This package of stories exposed cruel and unsanitary conditions and practices in the parrot-breeding industry. A parrot breeding facility in Pierce County, Washington, had many birds that were dying of malnutrition, and the local humane society did not act despite having proof of cruelty. The story showed that substandard, giant factory farms are common in the pet bird industry, and that such conditions could lead to outbreaks of diseases such as avian flu.
Tags: animals; pets; parrots; birds; avian flu; humane society; animal cruelty; factory farms; breeding
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$ 7-million Storyteller Mystifies Pinellas
This story exposes the relationship between David Conrad, a former public relations employee who started a communications consulting business and Pinellas county government's environmental management department. Over the past nine years, Conrad received seven million dollars from the government. He billed for more than 20 hours a day and county staffers renewed his contracts even though there were other companies in the Washington area capable of doing the same job.
Tags: David Conrad; public relations; Pinellas County; environmental management department; 7 million; fraud; County government
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War Without Victory
This series describes the facets of the war on drugs in Washington state, particularly areas that seemed too "small town" to have any drug problems. It involves a vivid description of the drug war in Snohomish County, the effects of drugs on newborn babies who carry on their mothers' addiction, how some drug offenders never spend a single day in jail, and also a study of how the legal system handles drug cases.
Tags: drug war; Washington; cocaine babies; drug-fighting agencies; Snohomish County
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A Heavy Burden
An accidental death at a Snohomish County nursing home looked like a simple case of neglect, but on closer inspection it highlighted deeper problems with elder care in Washington state. The company that owns the home was the most-fined care provider in Washington and also among the nation's worst for care deficiencies. At the same time, state regulators were cutting subsidies for the home, while demanding higher performance.
Tags: nursing home; Snohomish Parkway Nursing Center; Washington State Department of Social and Health Services; substandard care; Lynwood Manor Health Care Center; Medicaid; Residential Care Services