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Posts Tagged ‘police’
IRE Radio Podcast | The Bite Ratio
You don’t want to have a run-in with a police dog in North Port, Florida. A year-long investigation by Michael Davidson of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune found that North Port’s canines have been biting people at an alarming rate. And the dogs aren’t just drawing a little blood. Many of suspects on the receiving end of…
Read MoreInequality is not magical, and other takeaways from top journalists reporting on race issues
By Moriah Balingit In the past year, incidents of police brutality and fatal police shootings have served as a flashpoint for discussions on race in this country. And rightfully, much of the discourse has been centered around those events: the details, the characters, the protests and investigations in their aftermath. But how do journalists move…
Read MoreIRE Radio Podcast | The Problem with Witness Protection
When the Washington, DC police chief bristled over a question about witness executions, Washington Post reporter Cheryl W. Thompson knew she was on to something. On this episode we’ll be talking to Thompson about her investigation into witness killings and intimidation. And for the second half of the show we dug into our audio archives…
Read MoreWatchdogging law-breaking law enforcement
By Kasia Kovacs Ask anyone the biggest news story of the past year, and chances are you’ll hear some variation of “Ferguson” or “police shootings.” It’s a hot topic, and not without reason. After the shooting of an unarmed teenager in Ferguson, Mo., the police chokehold that killed Eric Garner in New York, and the…
Read MoreIRE Radio Podcast | Killed by the Cops
How many times a year do police kill people? And what happens to officers after they fire a fatal shot? Those were just some of the questions prompted by the deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri and Eric Garner in New York. On this episode of the IRE Radio Podcast we’ll be talking to…
Read MoreBehind the Story: How the WSJ uncovered a flawed system of reporting police killings
Rob Barry (left) and Coulter Jones (right) Rob Barry and Coulter Jones set out to analyze police killings, not poke holes in the system that tracks them. But when their sources started questioning the way they’d looked at the numbers – questioning, really, the numbers themselves – the two decided there was a more fundamental…
Read MoreBehind the Story: New Jersey reporter finds inconsistencies in 2008 death investigation
Chris Baxter Chris Baxter and NJ Advance Media wrestled out a compelling and untold story, let the digital presentation take the lead and came away with a “smashing” investigative success. Using a system he developed to keep tabs on lawsuits involving state police, Baxter came upon the stifled story of Kenwin Garcia, a Newark man…
Read MoreBehind the Story: How Chicago Magazine exposed the truth about the city’s crime rates
Chicago Magazine | June 2014 A story that helped change the way Chicagoans digest crime stats started with suspicion. Immersed in a different crime-related piece, Chicago Magazine Features Editor David Bernstein and Contributing Writer Noah Isackson noticed something amiss with the statistics. When their trusted police sources voiced skepticism, the early trappings of an idea…
Read MoreNPR releases militarization data ahead of White House analysis
NPR has released analyzed data that shows every military item shipped to local, state and federal agencies from 2006 through April 23, 2014, as a part of the 1033 program. The items from the Pentagon’s Law Enforcement Support Office include mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles (MRAPs) and assault rifles, among other things. NPR’s analysis also identifies the…
Read MoreIRE Radio Podcast | Cracking the Crime Stats
Welcome to another episode of the IRE Radio Podcast. On this week’s episode we’re talking about crime – everything from fact-checking police stats to building databases to track gun violence. Here’s the lineup: Michael Berens of The Seattle Times gets things started with a story about an odd beam of light, some dead rabbits and…
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