The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "Sheriff's Department" ...
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St. Bernard Voting Fraud
In an effort to preserve the sense of community in St. Bernard, and other similar parishes affected by Hurricane Katrina, the state passed legislation allowing residents to continue to vote at their previous residences, even if they were living outside of the parish during the rebuilding process. Fast forward six years. 2011. The rebuilding of St. Bernard continues, but with a post-Katrina population of 35,000, the parish has a fraction of its former residents. While some property owners have returned, many have moved to St. Tammany Parish. This is where WVUE's investigation begins. The investigative team received a tip that a St. Bernard Sheriff's Department employee lived in St. Tammany Parish, but was still voting in St. Bernard. This tip came right after the primary in St. Bernard's critical fall elections. The WVUE-TV team requested all voting records for the election, and found out that the deputy was the tip of the iceberg; illegal voting was widespread.
Tags: broadcast; voter fraud; Hurricane Katrina
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"FBI Data, Scholars: As Illegal Immigration Rose, Crime Rate Fell"
According to "widely trusted" crime reporting data, reports that crime is rising along the southern border of the U.S. in incorrect. Reporter Cristina Rayas wanted to find out if there was a correlation between crime and immigration. She found that the crime rate is actually down in the U.S. and that immigrants might actually be making "communities safer."
Tags: Unified Crime Reports; Department of Homeland Security; Pinal County Sheriff's Department; Mexico; Arizona; Council on Foreign Relations; Pew Hispanic Center; Border Patrol
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Stolen Identities
After finding suspicious documents, the story reveals a huge identity theft ring. The police ignored the evidence, but the investigators used these records to track down the individuals involved in the scandal. After tracking down the individuals involved, the police decided to arrest, charge, and eventually convict them. Further, every victim had their identity returned to them.
Tags: local hospital; St. Anthony Central Hospital; law enforcement; patient records; stolen data; hospital worker; Sheriff Department
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"Arpaio Investigation"
An investigation by KPHO-TV found that Sheriff Joe Arpaio often used his popularity as a means to "retaliate" when claims were made against him. The retaliation was often in the form of "SWAT raids" or "full-blown criminal investigations." Some of his victims included the mayor of Phoenix, Supreme Court judges and local police chiefs. KPHO found the FBI was also investigating the sheriff for "abuse of power."
Tags: Joe Arpaio; Mesa Police Chief; Mesa City Hall; Sheriff Arpaio; Department of Justice; Maricopa County
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Iron Men of Overtime
“Two sheriff’s deputies nearly tripled their pay through tremendous amounts of overtime, mostly teaching at a community college”. These deputies would work a great deal of overtime hours, over consecutive days and receive a large amount of overtime pay. After all this became visible, the sheriff put an end to overtime pay through the college, but at this point the deputies had already enhanced their annual pay for three years. Further, it increases their pension benefits for decades to come.
Tags: law enforcement; police department; police academy; Michael Asmolik; Richard Flanagan Jr.; Kevin Walsh; income; time sheet
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Deported: Until we meet again
For many Ohio jails and retention offices, illegal immigrants can mean big bucks. Contracts with Immigration and Customs Enforcement could allow some sheriff departments to create revenue by keeping immigrants who are waiting to be deported. Many deportees who are eventually deported say they will come back to the U.S.
Tags: Immigration and Customs Enforcement; deportation; deportees; El Salvador; taxpayers; illegal immigration
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Right By Miles
This story looked back to a traffic accident six years ago (2002) in which a car driven by a teenager ran off a back country road in the middle of the night and his passenger, a 16-year-old named Miles White, was killed. The polk County Shriff's Office investigated, ruled it a single car accident and charged the 19-year-old driver with DUI-manslaughter. The Times was able to show that the sheriff's office had engaged in a cover-up. It was not a single-car crash; it was caused by a Polk County sheriff's deputy, who, as it turned out, was a sexual predator who like teenage boys. He chased the boys that night, hit their rear bumper and ran them off the road. The Times showed that before the accident, the sheriff's office had been warned that they had a deputy who was using his undercover vehicle to stalk teenage boys. They had not heeded that warning and left him on the road. If he then caused an accident that killed a boy, the department would have been on the hook for multimillion dollar damages in a wrongful death lawsuit. The office chose instead to cover up the truth.
Tags: sheriff's department; Florida; car accidents; cover-up; sexual predators; wrongful dath
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Dirty Money
Some law enforcement agencies have become addicted to seizing drug money. This story found:</p> <p>*Police agencies are seizing bulk cash from drivers and alleging it's drug money without finding any drugs, or, in many cases, without ever filing criminal money laundering charges.</p> <p>* Underfunded, usually rural police and prosecutor's offices have become dependent on seizing suspected drug money to carry out the basic functions of their offices, a state of affairs specifically discouraged by federal asset forfeiture laws.</P> <p>* In the extreme, some corrupt police forces are setting up "forfeiture traps," reminiscent of small-town speed traps, to catch suspected drug couriers and take their currency, a practice some attorneys call "highway robbery"</p> <p>* Some sheriff's departments have become more interested in confiscating cash than drugs, i.d. working southbound lanes into Mexico -- "our piggybank," one South Texas sheriff told me -- where they're more likely to catch money couriers. The reporters also found that these departments are not interested in investigating the couriers as a way to disrupt cartel activities -- all they're interested in is seizing the cash.</p> <p>* With little oversight built into state or federal asset forfeiture laws, some prosecutors' office are misspending their seized drug funds on things like margarita machines for the annual picnic and soccer uniforms for the police soccer team.</p> <p>* More and more law enforcement agencies are taking advantage of the "piggy banks" on their highways. According to the US Justice Department, in the past four years seized assets tripled from $567 million to $1.6 billion.</p>
Tags: Drug enforcement; seizure of money; US Justice Department; radio; forfeiture traps
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I Lit the Fire: Jared Petrovich Admits His Role in the Killing of John Chamberlain. But why did he target the gay?
These four articles probed the culture of violence at tTheo Lacy Men's Jail in Orange, CA, beginning with an exclusive interview of Jared Petrovich, the accuse ringleader of the Oct. 5, 2006 murder of John Chamberlain, an inmate suspected of child molestation who was brutally beated inside the jail. That story included combined interviews with Petrovich and other inmates and guards at the facility with transcripts and notes of interviews with inmates and guards that the reporter obtained from lawyers representing inmates, including Petrovich, who were charged in the attack. The article contained allegations that Deputy Kevin Taylor, a prison guard who was never charged in the crime, told Petrovich that Chamberlain was a child molester, and that Taylor routinely use inmates like Petrovich to enforce prison rules and mete out punishment to various inmates. Petrovich provided an example of this behavior that I did not include in my original story, alleging that Taylor had known about--and approved--a previous beating of an inmate in Sept. 2006. He only knew the inmate's first name--Mark--but claimed the inmate had been a guitarist for the rock band Kiss. He claimed another inmate, nicknamed "Sick Dog" had witnessed Taylor being informed of the planned attack and, after it was carried out, rewarding the inmates with sack lunches. Through a California Public Records Act request, the reporter obtained the Sheriff Department's jail file on the beaten inmate, Mark Leslie Norton, aka Mark St. John of the rock band Kiss, and found information which corroborated Petrovich's account of the incident, and obtained his death certificate. St. John died of a brain hemorrhage several months after being released.
Tags: prison beatings; rock band Kiss; California; prisoner brutality; bribe; prison regulation
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Fatal Boat Crash: Wrong man charged?
When the Chief Deputy Sheriff of the Lake County Sheriff's Office was driving a speed boat it collided into a sailboat, killing a woman. However, it was the man driving the sailboat that was charged with manslaughter. ABC 7's investigation found that investigators were not taking statements from witnesses critical of the deputy and judges were not excusing themselves from the case, despite personal relationship with him.
Tags: police department; manslaughter; criminal justice; judge; witness testimony;