"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...

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.

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/

The new chief prosecutor of Chicago has stopped her predecessor’s policy of maintaining public lists of police officers with a history of misconduct that the office will not rely on, The Chicago Reader reports: chicagoreader.com/ne...

🚨NEW: Local jails & police departments are playing a key role in Trump’s mass arrest & deportation agenda The actual scope of this collaboration – and the true scale of immigrant arrests and detentions – has not been publicly available, until now 🧵

Shortly after taking office, Cook County state’s attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke quietly scrapped two lengthy lists of tarnished police officers maintained by her predecessor to fulfill the office’s constitutional obligations and prevent wrongful convictions.

Latest: A judge ruled the New York State Police must disclose the names of officers it redacted from misconduct records sought by the NYCLU. It's the latest in a five-years-and-running FOIA battle over police misconduct records in New York reason.com/2025/07/24/c...

Missing Gawker dot com today

Interesting that this new law calls on the Louisiana POST board to create a use of force data reporting policy. As @invisible.institute + @theappeal.org reported last year, that agency withholds even basic police employment history data under questionable readings of state law:

cook county state's attorney eileen o'neill burke has quietly scrapped two lengthy lists of tarnished police officers that were maintained by her predecessor to fulfill the office’s constitutional obligations and prevent wrongful convictions. from @invisible.institute + @chicagoreader.com:

NEW: Eileen O'Neil Burke, the new law-and-order Cook County State's Attorney, committed to transparency while campaigning. Today, we report on her quiet replacement of her predecessor's two lists of cops with credibility issues with one much smaller list. @invisible.institute + @chicagoreader.com

NEW: On March 15, President Donald Trump’s administration sent more than 230 Venezuelan immigrants to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador. Last week, the men were released as suddenly as they’d been taken away. These are their stories.

City counselor Michael Garvin says the law giving the governor control of the police department also handcuffs the oversight board.

In 2020, New York did away with its law allowing police misconduct records to be private. But a law that previously greenlit the destruction of many of those same records quietly remained on the books.

An Orlando Sentinel analysis shows 55% of ICE detainees in Lake, Osceola and Seminole County jails earlier this year were arrested during vehicle stops. Less than 20% were charged with violent crimes. www.orlandosentinel.com/2025/07/20/o...

NEW: A sheriff's office in Southeast Ohio settled a lawsuit alleging two former deputies violated the civil rights of a father and son while investigating a conflict between neighbors. It was the third agency that one of the deputies left after misconduct—and he went on to get fired from the next.

If you are involved in trying to make nonprofit news sustainable, I wrote and reported this story for you! So much news that deserves our attention right now, but I hope you'll spend some time with my Houston Landing retrospective for @niemanlab.org (1/3) www.niemanlab.org/2025/07/what...

Eight years before a jury sentenced him to death for two murders and he confessed to three more, Michael Bell spent time at a Florida reform school so violent that the state later apologized for the abuse and paid millions to the victims.

#‪Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson's admin keeps #police “merit” promotion lists secret despite #CPD vows to release them and despite an Obama-era U.S. Justice Department report decrying the promotions. @samstecklow.bsky.social @invisible.institute @chicagoreader.com chicagoreader.com/news/reader-...

The CPD committed to releasing “merit” promotion lists in 2017. Now, the city claims doing so would be an invasion of privacy. | ✍️ Rachel Heimann Mercader and Sam Stecklow at @invisible.institute

John Poulos’s past might have prevented him from being hired by the Chicago Police Department — if he had been honest about it. Instead, the lieutenant’s rise through the department’s ranks is emblematic of many of the problems identified by critics of CPD’s “merit” promotion system. buff.ly/8mIYoZX

In 2017, CPD pledged to make public lists of officers promoted through the secretive “merit” promotion process. Instead, under Mayor Brandon Johnson, the city is fighting in court to stop release of the lists. Happy to partner with @invisible.institute & @chicagoreader.com to publish this piece.

NEW: In 2017, Chicago PD committed to releasing CPD's lists of officers promoted through the controversial "merit" promotion process going forward. Now, the city claims that doing so would be an invasion of the officers' privacy. So @invisible.institute is suing. Read more w/ @chicagoreader.com:

Our guide to public records for Chicago tenants is now available online! In this series of videos, senior reporter Maya Dukmasova walks you through how to use free government databases to learn about any property’s building code violations and ownership. www.injusticewatch.org/knowyourbuilding

A former Chicago cop fired for discussing sex with a minor & banned from city employment somehow ended up working security at Lane Tech. How? He submitted dozens of applications with different work experience until he was hired. Questions remain if better record sharing would improve student safety.

After five years, a judge ordered public records be released in the death of Forsyth County inmate John Neville. He warned he would die and shouted that he couldn’t breathe. ✍️ @daniellebattaglia.bsky.social www.newsobserver.com/news/state/n...