In 2018, the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation was quick to write off the death of Rankin County jail inmate William Wade Aycock IV as an accident. But an investigation by Mississippi Today and The New York Times unearthed new evidence in the case that suggests Aycock was killed. With support from the Fund, the reporting found that state investigators ignored ...
Shops that sell hemp products – often black-market marijuana – have opened across Pennsylvania, and law enforcement efforts to crack down on them have been inconsistent and haphazard, according to an investigation by the Philadelphia Inquirer, with support from the Fund. The Inquirer found that shops operate and sell drugs and drug paraphernalia openly and with impunity. Stores routinely reopen ...
Hundreds of “boarding homes” for elderly and disabled people in Texas operate without oversight, leaving residents vulnerable to neglect and abuse, according to new reporting by Ottavia Spaggiari for Type Investigations and In These Times, co-published in the Texas Observer. With support from the Fund, Spaggiari spent three years tracking more than 100 cases of reported abuse and neglect across ...
For decades, the State Police, New York’s second-largest law enforcement agency, has had no formal disciplinary guidelines for misconduct, and action against officers is inconsistent and sometimes lax, according to reporting by Sassy Sussman for The New York Times and New York Focus. With support from the Fund, Sussman reviewed thousands of police disciplinary files. He identified cases of misconduct ...
With support from the Fund, reporter Emmett Gartner dug into the case of an elderly couple in Maine who couldn’t get help from a state program that funds electric heating for low-income people living in mobile homes. He collected court documents, and he interviewed participants of the low-income mobile home heating program and oversight officials. The couple finally has working ...
The Utah Investigative Journalism Project filed more than 170 records requests with 48 local law-enforcement agencies across the state to see what happens to police officers who are disciplined for not properly using body-worn cameras. The records identified 25 officers across 11 agencies with such violations. The reporting, supported by the Fund, also highlighted agencies’ policies for use of body-worn ...
In continuing coverage of a Dallas-based hotelier and Republican megadonor’s efforts to influence local politics, the Texas Observer began digging into his latest venture, a nonprofit organization to address homelessness in Dallas. With support from the Fund, Steven Monacelli traced how the organization positioned itself as a statewide expert and advocate on homelessness, while pushing an agenda to move shelters ...
The State of New York plans to ask a judge to dismiss 500 prison sexual abuse cases because of typos and other technicalities in the victims’ legal filings, according to new reporting in New York Focus and Hell Gate. With support from the Fund, Chris Gelardi and Jessy Edwards have spent months compiling and analyzing data from 1,600 lawsuits filed ...
Cleaning oilfield pollution in West Texas is costly and complicated – and bankruptcy laws let oil companies off the hook, sticking taxpayers with the bill – according to reporting by Martha Pskowski for Inside Climate News. With support from the Fund, Pskowski spent six months investigating contamination and cleanup efforts on property that the city of Midland, Texas, bought to ...
In its ongoing investigation of Hawaii’s child welfare system, with support from the Fund, Honolulu Civil Beat won a legal battle to unseal records that show how one man was allowed to be a foster parent to the boys he sexually preyed on and abused. The records show that the state stood behind the man and continued sending boys to ...