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 "Tarrant County" ...
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Captive Care
“The story is about third-world conditions in the prisoner care facilities operated by the Tarrant County public hospital, John Peter Smith, and the efforts of the hospital’s new CEO and COO to fix the problems”.
Tags: health care; medicine; medical services; patients; poor; equipment
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Taj Mahal on the Trinity
"This story dealt with the out-of-control construction costs of public county community college urban campus." Also, the errors made by the district, the demands for more money, and failure to oversee the project until the costs estimates were up to "half-billion dollars with less than one-third of the project complete." Further, a great deal of citizens turned against the project, due to the large amount of taxpayer dollars being used.
Tags: education; facility; FOIA; Tarrant County; college district; construction; costs; colleges
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Code Red for JPS
"Code Red for JPS" is an examination of the problems of John Peter Smith Hospital, which with its satellite clinics makes up the Tarrant County public hospital system. The story includes patient, employee, and public officials' accounts of the dangerously poor care that JPS provides due to a variety of factors.
Tags: healthcare; hospital; misuse of funds; negligence; poor staffing; patient satisfaction
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Master's Degree of a Mess; TCC's Money Machine; Illegal to Erase
These stories were part of a year-long investigation of the Tarrant County College District's four-year mismanaged project to build a long-awaited downtown campus in Fort Worth, Texas. In includes investigation into the roles of the chancellor and the board of trustees in the debacle.
Tags: Higher education; mismanagement of funds; Texas; construction projects; urban planning; sunshine laws
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Taking the Cuffs off at Carswell
Fort Worth Weekly reporter Betty Brink has been covering medical and sexual abuse of female inmates at Carswell Federal Medical Center, in Texas, since 1999. As a result of her coverage, and his own investigation, a retired judge, Ross Sears is asking for a Congressional investihgation into the deadly conditions at "the only prison hospital in the country for mentally or chronicallly ill or dying women who have been convicted of a federal crime."
Tags: medical negligence; sexual abuse; Carswell Federal Mediacal Center; medical records; Bureau of Prisons; FOI requests; U.S. Office of Special Counsel; Dr. Roger Guthrie; Ross Sears; retaliation; compassionate release; John Peter Smith Hospital; Tarrant County Medical Examiner; autopsies; prison deaths; women inmates; femaile prisoners; Baylor Regional Transplant Institute; Huguley Memorial Medical Center; brain damage; whistleblower complaints; medical malpractice; sentinel event; rape;
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Tarrant County Jail health care
Autrey examined medical care at Tarrant County jails, tracking each of the 10 deaths at the jail during 2004. She relates the extensive problems she found with medical care at the jail. Hospital administrators responsible for jail care overlooked the signs of crisis, spoke of political retribution for the sheriff when he complained and proclaimed the problems solved several times, although they were not.
Tags: Tarrant County; jail; prison; health care
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Rationed Care
The Star-Telegram looks at problems flooding the taxpayer-funded hospital system in Tarrant County, Texas. The three-part series reveals that unjustified income requirements have cut off uninsured residents from subsidized treatment. Patients have to be poorer than in other urban counties in the state in order to receive non-emergency care and prescription drugs at discount. Other findings include that funding is not reaching patient care, but is "rather being diverted to other, unnecessary items such as construction, renovation and acquisition of building space." Administrators have been slow to add basic services, and a shortage of doctors and supplies has severely hurt patient care.
Tags: insurance; neighborhood clinics; FOI requests; health care; federal funds; uninsured patients; Medicaid; income; poverty; welfare; pharmacies; EMS
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Unequal Justice
A Star-Telegram three-part series reveals that in Tarrant county, Texas, "people who can't afford their own attorneys are much more likely to receive a jail or prison sentence than people who pay for their own lawyers, even among defendants with similar criminal histories." The reporters examine more than 10, 500 court records and find numerous cases of innocent people, spending months in prison, because they can't afford to pay an experienced attorney. The investigation also shows that poor are more vulnerable to death penalty. "The findings reveal a system in which poor defendants must stay in jail because they can't afford bail or an attorney; low compensation leads many top defense attorneys to avoid court appointed cases, leaving defendants with inexperienced lawyers; rules for providing lawyers to the poor differ from judge to judge."
Tags: Texas Public Information Act; crime; wrongful convictions; death penalty; lawyers
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Tax free, high-rent housing
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports that "Tarrant County helped a developer build apartments for low-to moderate-income people. The trouble is that poor people can't afford to live in them--and it's all perfectly legal.... State and federal law give broad power to local housing corporations to set rules governing their projects... (the) Star-Telegram examination of the Trammell Crow apartments (was) based on county housing corporation records, financial statements and other documents, as well as interviews with banking and housing finance experts and state and federal officials..."