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 "car" ...
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Driven To Distraction
This seven-month-long investigation revealed serious crashes, injuries and deaths caused by a danger that now exists in virtually every police car in the United States. Dashboard-mounted technology has turned modern patrol cars into offices on wheels. Computers, cameras, GPS devices, radios, smart phones and license plate scanners compete for the officer’s attention while driving, and the consequences of those distractions can be life altering. The series led to significant policy changes at two of the largest police departments in Texas. It sparked action from the world’s largest organization of police leaders. And our reporting also became mandatory safety training viewing for every highway trooper in one state.
Tags: Police; patrol cars; crashes; injuries; deaths; driving safety; highway trooper
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Death in Police Custody
An investigation into the death of a man who suffocated while in the back of a Milwaukee police squad car found officers had violated department policy in not seeking help and the medical examiner missed key signs pointing toward the officers’ actions being a factor in the death. The stories prompted a wave of action and reform: new departmental rules, a public inquest, an FBI investigation and the resignation of the medical examiner.
Tags: Police; death; department policy; medical examiner
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Maywood Confidential
On the evening of Oct. 23, 2006, as a premature snow fell in parts of the Chicago area, Maywood (Illinois) Police Officer Tom Wood pulled his marked SUV to a dimly lit corner known for drug sales, rolled down his window part of the way and began talking to somebody, likely a person he knew. Within minutes gunfire exploded from the street, ripping through the car and hitting Officer Wood in the head and elsewhere, killing the 37-year-old father of five almost instantly. More than six years later, the murder is still unsolved, and an eerie pall has been cast over the official investigation, and Maywood itself. The nonprofit Better Government Association (BGA) and WFLD-TV/FOX Chicago set out to determine what happened – why Officer Wood was killed and why the official investigation into his death had failed to produce an arrest or criminal charges. In a figurative sense, our findings (which form the basis for our entry) indict not a person, but a culture of corruption and apathy in Maywood that may have contributed to Officer Wood’s death, and certainly played a role in the subsequently botched homicide probe.
Tags: Murder; police officer; corruption; homicide
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Concealing County Corruption: Anatomy of a Cover-Up
Wayne Dolcefino saves the best for last. In his final investigation for KTRK-TV, he and the 13 Undercover Unit demonstrated relentless persistence as they attempted to shake up a county government with an abysmal record of policing itself. This submission begins with four reports detailing shocking evidence of corruption inside the downtown precinct of Constable Jack Abercia. 13 Undercover spent several months doing painstaking surveillance -- catching the Constable’s deputies running his personal errands, working extra jobs on the clock and stockpiling never driven county patrol cars while lawmen were being laid off. 13 Undercover then managed to get a hidden camera inside the chief deputy’s office as he and two deputies talked openly about corruption inside the precinct. The language is often foul mouthed and always revealing. The FBI nabbed Aberica and two top commanders in a bribery sting weeks later. The veteran former constable is now awaiting trial. Eventually, 13 Undercover turned our cameras on county leaders to say “enough is enough.” Not only was action not forthcoming, it quickly became clear that many in positions of power wanted this all to go away without getting their hands dirty, without ending decades of a patronage system that made deputies feel required to give money to their boss’s campaigns and charities to keep their jobs. That was not an option. This investigation demanded accountability and we held leaders to the promises they made to the public. In late summer, 13 Undercover scored a major public records victory that revealed what one commentator dubbed "a cover-up of Nixonian proportions." The series culminated with the long awaited, and previously unimaginable, indictment of one of the county’s most popular elected officials – precinct 6 Constable Victor Trevino. New county directives now prohibit constables from soliciting money from their deputies and legislation is expected to filed in Austin to protect county employees from further shakedowns.
Tags: Corruption; county government; officials
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The Columbus Dispatch: Credit Scars
The Dispatch documented the plight of thousands who, through no fault of their own, have been denied the chance to buy a home or a car, take out a loan for college, rent an apartment, land a job, join the Armed Forces, receive medical care or even open a checking account.
Tags: Credit cards; credit reports; checking accounts; banks
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Sun Sentinel: Speeding Cops
A Miami cop in his marked patrol car set off a public fury in the fall of 2011 when a Florida state trooper clocked him going 120 mph to an off-duty job. Turning to technology and a never-before used tool – highway toll records – the Sun Sentinel produced back-to-back investigations documenting widespread police misconduct and the professional solidarity that allowed it to flourish. In "Above the Law," a three-part series published in February, reporters used police toll records to confirm what many South Florida drivers had witnessed for years: cops were among the worst speeders on the roads, taking advantage of the badge and patrol car to ignore the very laws they enforce. "Short Shifted," a two-part series published in December, used those same toll records to detail how many South Florida cops, paid to serve and protect, were regularly leaving their beats and cities before their shifts ended.
Tags: Police; police speeders
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NC Auto Inspection's-Failing the Test
Every year, North Carolina auto owners must take vehicles to private garages for state-mandated safety and emissions testing meant to prevent traffic crashes and curb pollution. Drivers cannot put a car on the road legally unless it passes inspection. A review inspection data showed the program is undermined by unscrupulous garages who do a volume business, passing unsafe cars, and by other who take bribes or cheat customers with uncessary repairs.
Tags: auto owners; emissions testing; unsafe cars
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Green Energy: Contracts, Connections and the Collapse of Solyndra
Beginning in March, the Center's Ronnie Greene and ABC's Matthew Mosk and Brian Ross exposed flaws in the Department of Energy's billion-dollar spending spree, revealed deep links between Obama campaign bundlers and energy contracts and foreshadowed the financial and political storm that later engulfed Solyndra. Our reporting for "Green Energy: Contracts, Connections and the Collapse of Solyndra" broke ground before Solyndra's meltdown, and went well beyond the company in revealing a web of connections entangling a department lauded for its innovation. Working as full-reporting partners, our stories tied major Obama donors to lucrative green energy contracts for everything from electric cars to diesel substitutes. After over a year of reporting, we produced 50,000 words for the Center's website, thousands more on ABC's site and broadcasts on World News Tonight, Good Morning America and Nightline. Our stories, built from FOIA requests that yielded thousands of contract, financial and ethics documents, served as a template for national media reports that followed.
Tags: contracts; green energy; Obama; green energy; spending
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Suicide By Cop
Documenting the story of how a veteran from Iraq, suffering from severe post-traumatic stress disorder, terrorizes a store full of customers and then proceeds to lead police from four counties on a high-speed car chase across North Dakota.
Tags: veteran; ptsd; iraq; hostage; mental breakdown
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Pay Day Lenders Skirt Law
The story revealed how a high end race car driver who is also a convicted felon is partnering with an Indian tribe to run a multi-million dollar payday loan business. By partnering with the tribe the lenders do not have to follow any state laws. The lender is currently under multiple investigations by attorneys general.
Tags: payday loan; Better Business Bureau; property tax records