Shaping narratives when police shoot and kill someone has been a fundamental part of how police and their supporters operate. For example, see this @yanak.bsky.social @samstecklow.bsky.social story about the Chicago Police Department from 2016: chicagoreader.com/news/how-chi...

Police officers move to new departments all the time. What is the responsibility of local agencies to make sure they're not hiring officers accused of misconduct? @samstecklow.bsky.social and I look at the hiring of one officer in Phoenix www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/phoenix...

NEW: In 2021, Seattle cop Scotty Bach attended the Stop the Steal rally on Jan. 6, resigned after an investigation found it was "inconclusive" whether or not he committed misconduct there, and sued to prevent his name from being released. In 2022, he was hired by the Phoenix Police Department.

Timothy Loehmann killed 12-year-old Tamir Rice in a Cleveland park in 2014. Records show Loehmann was recently hired again by not one, but two departments in West Virginia: the Snowshoe Resort Community District and the Gilmer County Sheriff's Office.

Over the past year, a group of activists, former law enforcement officials, and relatives of people who were harmed by police worked to recommend police reforms for Springfield, Illinois. Their new report reflects months of debate and compromise.

New from Kevin Light-Roth: Tim Ballard promoted the use of sting operations to combat sex trafficking until his own sexual misconduct allegations tore his career to shreds. Now, the families of men he helped send to prison are demanding answers: theappeal.org/net-nanny-wa...

new: government contractors are increasingly invoking trade secrets protections to shield products like gunshot detection, dna analysis, and facial recognition from public scrutiny. via max blaisdell + matt chapman

Several Chicago newsrooms spent two months collecting and analyzing evidence of ICE & Border Patrol's use of tear gas and pepper spray in Chicago. They found that agents deployed chemical agents nearly 50 times. Most uses occurred after a judge ordered federal agents to restrict their use.

NEW: Newly released video of a December 2023 incident inside the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center has raised questions about a judge’s decision to acquit one of the officers involved, experts and advocates told Injustice Watch. buff.ly/uM9m0zx

NEWS: ICE agent charged with drunken driving after shift at Broadview detention center. Car crash into a hedgerow. Trump’s Midway Blitz is claimed to be inspired by an undocumented drunk driving death. www.chicagotribune.com/2025/11/05/i...

Every time #Florida tried to regulate polluters, the polluters bought enough politicians to make the state back off -- hence the rampant contamination of FL waterways. An investigation by the @tampabaytimes.bsky.social that quantifies the damage done. project.tampabay.com/investigatio...

Federal agencies paid $1.5 million to a local nonlethal weapons manufacturer in Chicago for air-powered guns and pepper balls. It also paid $7.3 million to a downtown real estate company to relocate ICE agents leading up to Operation Midway Blitz. blockclubchicago.org/2025/10/23/c...

In the wake of Charlie Kirk's death, a TN sheriff had a 61-yr-old man arrested for posting a meme on Facebook, which the sheriff absurdly construed as a threat. It was pretty clearly bullshit but I dug into the case using FB & public records and now it looks even worse. My latest @theintercept.com:

Learn about using police employment and misconduct data housed in the National Police Index and Police Records Access Project, two new databases for use by journalists, attorneys, researchers, and members of the public. We'll be presenting at @ire.org's AccessFest this weekend.

The first episode of the Things That Go Boom podcast's new season is here. @tkbarnes.bsky.social does a deep dive into the Utah desert, where Northrop Grumman is building the next generation of intercontinental ballistic missiles with the help of massive state subsidies.

Learn about using police employment and misconduct data housed in the National Police Index and Police Records Access Project, two new databases for use by journalists, attorneys, researchers, and members of the public. We'll be presenting at @ire.org's AccessFest this weekend.

As @invisible.institute + @mindsitenews.bsky.social reported earlier this year, involuntary commitment is an increasingly popular response to mental health crises and homelessness across the U.S. — including in some Democratic-led cities, like Chicago, that are quieter in their advocacy for it.

NEW: In the weeks leading up to a massive ICE raid at a South Shore apartment building, neighbors saw drones surveilling the area, and teachers at a nearby school regularly saw agents in the neighborhood. ✍️ Jose Abonce for the Weekly and Maira Khwaja for @invisible.institute

New from 404 Media: Apple just removed ICEBlock, the app for reporting sightings of ICE, from its App Store after DOJ pressure. ICEBlock's developer tells me "we are determined to fight this." "Capitulating to an authoritarian regime is never the right move." www.404media.co/iceblock-own...

NEW — An estimated 40 people were taken by federal agents in an overnight raid in South Shore, a predominantly-Black neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side. A couple who live nearby said they were shocked to see the enormous militarized raid in their community. thetriibe.com/2025/09/feds...

NEW from @injusticewatch.org and @boltsmag.org: Cook County has more documented wrongful convictions than any county in the nation. In the last 10 months, State’s Attorney Eileen O'Neill Burke has weakened her office’s main system for freeing innocent people. buff.ly/ysPtaYG

NEW: After @invisible.institute published MN police data, the board that released the data was sued under claims that 257 undercover officers had been exposed. Today, a review by II + @sahanjournal.bsky.social finds that all but 3 had info online IDing them as police—before the release of our data.

NEW — Video posted to social media shows Unraveled Press co-founder Steve Held being detained by federal agents outside the Broadview immigration facility earlier this evening. A collection of Chicago newsrooms is calling for his immediate release. thetriibe.com/2025/09/chic...

"All but three of the 257 officers claiming to be working undercover had information available online linking their given name with being a #police officer in Minnesota before the release of the POST data". sahanjournal.com/news-partner...

Undercover Minnesota officers suing oversight board to block release have public LinkedIns, discipline and shootings, @samstecklow.bsky.social reports sahanjournal.com/news-partner...

NEW: After @invisible.institute published MN police data, the board that released the data was sued under claims that 257 undercover officers had been exposed. Today, a review by II + @sahanjournal.bsky.social finds that all but 3 had info online IDing them as police—before the release of our data.

Today marks the one year anniversary since HRDAG and our partners at @invisible.institute , Innocence & Justice Louisiana, and Machine Learning Justice Lab launched the National Police Index, a project to shed light on police employment history data. www.nprillinois.org/news/2024-10...

A good story on Missouri’s broken police decertification system. Last year, I wrote a related story about how the state POST refuses to release data showing the employment histories of officers in the state — preventing a full analysis of the “municipal shuffle” of officers in St. Louis Metro:

Police secrecy bill would shield undercover California officers in misconduct cases

Journalist Mario Guevara has now been detained for almost 100 days after he was arrested while covering a protest, despite judge granting him bond and family trying to pay it: "Moved from jail to jail to jail to jail to jail" apnews.com/article/jour...

My first article as part of The Times' Local Investigations Fellowship: In New York, Some Police Officers Can Drink, Drive and Avoid Charges www.nytimes.com/2025/09/09/u...

"The city of Chicago on Thursday announced a roughly $90 million “global settlement” to resolve 176 lawsuits tied to disgraced former Chicago police Sgt. Ronald Watts, who ran a corrupt public housing unit and went to federal prison for shaking down an FBI informant."

New @michellepitcher.bsky.social: Efforts to limit police transparency by shielding some complaints from public view have failed multiple times during the 2025 legislative season—most recently in the form of House Bill 15, which died this week.

NEW: Politicians of both parties are pushing to expand forced hospitalization. In many cases, cops w/ minimal training fill out forms attesting that people are a danger to themselves or others. In Chicago, police forcibly hospitalize 6 people a day. It's how over 20% of CPD mental health calls end.

“The first thing we deserve is an explanation from COPA about why they’re changing their mind in these cases,” Block says. “If there was some serious flaw in COPA’s initial investigation or recommendation, that should be explained.”

NEW: In what appears to be one of the largest expansions of surveillance in IL history, we found hundreds of new Flock license plate readers—all paid for by AG Kwame Raoul's office in the last 3 years. Issues with Flock Safety's data sharing practices are mounting. Will our sanctuary status hold?

Since 2020, New Jersey has provided greater transparency involving police who use force and the major discipline actions taken against police. But tracking the number of fatal shootings by law enforcement officers remains difficult.

The Adams County Sheriff has been cooperating with ICE, despite Illinois' sanctuary laws prohibiting so. As a result, at least two men have been deported. news.wttw.com/2025/08/15/a...

After years of legal battles, the city of Seattle has disclosed the names of all its police officers who attended President Donald Trump’s rally on Jan. 6, 2021.

My latest investigation! A story about some wild things that happened at a UIC forensics lab and how inadequate crime lab oversight is in our state. In the course of reporting I: -filed 45+ FOIA requests -did 100+ interviews -reviewed 8000+ pages of records www.injusticewatch.org/project/fore...

NEW: A Palos Heights cop has been disciplined after sharing his password to a vast license plate reader database with the feds. A DEA agent used Detective Todd Hutchinson's login for 24 immigration related searches in late January. We've obtained a memo from PHPD along with chat screenshots:

“This is the most massive secrecy grab in Texas since the adoption of the Public Information Act.” New today from @michellepitcher.bsky.social: A move to "standardize" police personnel files could have devastating consequences for transparency.

Four Al Jazeera staff, including reporter Anas Al Sharif, were killed in an Israeli attack on a tent for journalists outside the main gate of Gaza's al-Shifa hospital aje.io/onll19

The Minneapolis police officer who fatally shot Amir Locke — and, until recently, led MPD’s use-of-force training — is not the only trainer whose record has raised concerns over the department’s commitment to changing its culture.

On Jan. 6, Jared Wise urged rioters to "kill" cops. "You are the Nazi. You are the Gestapo," Wise yelled. Trump dismissed Wise's Jan. 6 case, and the DOJ hired him as a senior adviser. We got the bodycam video showing Wise on Jan. 6. www.npr.org/2025/08/07/n...

A new report by a former NYPD executive shows that more cops doesn't necessarily equal better public safety.

NEW: An Alabama teenager was prosecuted and convicted of murder over the death of his friend, whom he didn't shoot or kill. Bolts worked on this important read by the Yale Reporting Lab to illuminate the little-understood ramifications of the 'felony murder' doctrine: boltsmag.org/alabama-felo...

The analysis by the UChicago Project, which studies the politics of policing, is the first academic study to examine the impact the decommissioning of ShotSpotter on crime rates in Chicago. (via @heathercherone.bsky.social)

We’ve launched a database with about 1.5 million pages of once-secret records detailing when law enforcement officers in California seriously injured someone or an agency found an officer violated policy with @kqednews.kqed.org, @sfchronicle.com @latimes.com @calmatters.org 1/