Police
Wisconsin partnership tracks unsolved murders
Gannett Wisconsin Media began publishing a four-week series called Cold Cases: Tracking Wisconsin’s unsolved murders. According to Gannett Wisconsin Media, the project is the most comprehensive look into unsovled murders ever assembled in the region. The Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism also partnered with Gannett Wisconsin Media on this project, which includes a searchable database…
Read MoreViolence reverberates through the city, even with decline in shootings, homicides
“It was just one scene in a city where gunfire has long been too common. In the first six months of this year, more than 1,000 people were shot in Chicago, according to a (Chicago) Tribune analysis.”
Read More13 excessive force complaints against Minneapolis police officer involved in Terrence Franklin shooting
His supervisors and fellow officers praise Officer Lucas Peterson as a courageous and exemplary cop. Court records offer a different view — an officer whose aggressive methods frequently cross the line, according to a Star Tribune report. Since he joined the force in 2000, he has been named in at least 13 excessive force complaints…
Read MoreUnjustified
A Newsday report reveals how a cop shot an unarmed man — and kept his job.
Read MoreState photo-ID databases become troves for police
The Washington Post reports that the faces of more than 120 million people are in searchable photo databases that state officials assembled to prevent driver’s-license fraud but that increasingly are used by police to identify suspects, accomplices and even innocent bystanders in a wide range of criminal investigations.
Read MoreStar witness in Debra Milke case accused of ongoing misconduct as constable
Condemned killer Debra Milke still sits on Arizona’s death row. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed her conviction largely on the testimony of Phoenix Police Detective Armando Saldate, who claimed Milke confessed. He didn’t record it, write it down or have it witnessed. Investigative reporter Wendy Halloran from KPNX (NBC) Phoenix uncovered Saldate had a history…
Read MoreFBI launches investigation into Phoenix Fire Department over arson arrests
Investigative Reporter Wendy Halloran from KPNX-12 News Phoenix uncovered a history of shoddy investigations that led to arrests, grand jury indictments and prosecution of people in Phoenix by arson investigators with the Phoenix Fire Department. The cases also factored into the department’s boast of the highest arson clearance rates in the country. Halloran’s probe also prompted the…
Read MorePolice officer fired and then rehired
“Questions linger months after the Almanac broke the story about the arrest, firing and reinstatement of a veteran Menlo Park police officer: How, exactly, does a police officer keep his job after being caught with a prostitute in a motel room?” “Now, the public finally has some answers. The Almanac spent five months investigating binding…
Read MoreExtra Extra Monday: terrorism fears and chemical plants, mental health gaps, factory farm pollution
Terrorism fears have led government to cloak the danger of hazardous chemical plants | The Houston Chronicle“Around the country, hundreds of buildings like the one in West store some type of ammonium nitrate. They sit in quiet fields and by riverside docks, in business districts and around the corner from schools, hospitals and day care…
Read MoreMinneapolis cops rarely disciplined in big-payout cases
The Star Tribune reports that Minneapolis police haven’t disciplined many of their officers accused of misconduct. “Despite nearly $14 million in payouts for alleged police misconduct over the past seven years, the Minneapolis Police Department rarely concluded that the officers involved did anything wrong, according to a Star Tribune analysis. Of 95 payouts from 2006…
Read More