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 "public records requests" ...
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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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The All About Me Mayor
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is known for holding endless press conferences, flying around the world and campaigning for presidential candidates. The author, using a California Public Records Request, received the mayor's work schedule from may through July and found that Villaraigosa had spend only 11 percent of his time on "real, roll up your sleeves work."
Tags: California Public Records Request; Antonio Villaraigosa; Los Angeles mayor's office; public record request; city government
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Pokey Chatman resignation series
Through a public records request The Daily Reveille found that the LSU women's basketball coach Pokey Chatman had not resigned for the reasons stated to the public. Instead "Chatman had actually resigned because of allegations of inappropriate conduct."
Tags: sexual conduct; public records; Louisiana State University; basketball; coach; resignation; LSU; Pokey Chatman
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Dirty Little Secrets
The Toronto Star filed "freedom of information request to municipal and provincial government offices requesting data on inspections, serious occurrences, infection control, food safety, licensing...and enforcement actions by the ministry...and every public complaint against a daycare" over the past three years. "Together, the records painted a portrait of licensed childcare never before seen."
Tags: childcare; Canada; legal cases; daycare; licensing; FOIA
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Secret Police
KGTV "audited Sand Diego county law enforcement agencies requesting public records. Working with CalAware, a state-wide open records advocacy group, we went undercover to see how these agencies would comply with California's Open Record laws."
Tags: CalAware; undercover; open record; law enforcement; oral request; written request; public documents
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Takings Initiatives Accountability Project: The Center for Public Integrity investigates ballot initiatives that would radically change land-use and environmental regulation in five Western states
The [non-partisan]Center for Public Integrity investigated 2006 "ballot initiatives that were designed to radically change land-use and environmental regulation in five Western states. They discovered that a trio of "secret donors" accounted for 99% of the propostions' bankrolls, and some of the initiatives did not comply with campaign-finance and other regulations. Then the Center revealed that 85 percent of the funding was coming from a single wealthy real estate investor and Libertarian activist, Howard RIch All but the Arizona inititative failed at the ballot. The Center for Public Integrity set up a stand-alone website-- www.takings initiatives.org-- and filed more than 50 articles on it. "Our general practice-- and a novel one as far as we can tell-- was to mount verbatim transcripts of the interviews on our website, including audio recordings where available. We sought to allow proponents, opponents funders and experts to have a chance to present their side of the story in their own words." The Center also checked with state and federal regulators for compliance of relevant laws and regulations.
Tags: Takings Initiatives; takings clause; ballot initiatives; land-use regulation; environmental regulation; tax-exempt organizations; Howard Rich; Andrea Millen Rich; Council for Responsible Government; William A. Wilson; state campaign-finance filings; public records requests; state freedom of information requests; America At Its Best; Americans for Limited Government; John Tillman; Howard Ahmanson; Fieldstead & Company; property rights; prefessional signature-gatherers; Colorado At Its Best; term limits; nonprofit advocacy organizations; Sam Adams Alliance; Sam Adams Foundation; Legislative Education Action Drive; Parents in Charge Foundation; Social Security Choice.org; Illinois Charitable Trust Bureau; educational vouchers; tuition tax credits; National Taxpayers Union; First Class Education; Susquehanna International Group; Jeffrey YAss; Cato Institute; Alliance for School Choice; Decision Education Foundation; Eric Brooks; Susan Mitchell; Pete Sepp; Kern Family Foundation; Generac Power Systems, Inc.; Milton Friedman; Taxpayer Bill of Rights; TABOR; Laird Maxwell; This House is MY Home; John Whitehead; Lower Manhattan Development Corporation; Exoxemis, Inc.; Family Farm Preservation Pact; Citizens for Community Protection; Kelo v. City of New London; eminent domain; New York Millionaires Assistance Act; Wallace Global Fund; Nicholas C. Dranias; PRNewswire; Eric O'Keefe; getliberty.com; George Soros
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A Stunning Toll
Fort Worth Weekly partnered with University of North Texas students who made open records requests of all Texas law enforcement agencies to obtain data on deaths and injuries in Texas resulting form law enforcement agency individual's Taser use.
Tags: Distributed Reporting Project; FOI; Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas; University of North Texas; UNT; Mayborn Graduate Institute of Journalism; Tasers; law enforcement; Texas Public Information Act; police; sheriffs; Taser International; American Civil Liberties Union; Live Music Capitol of the World; Austin; use-of-force policy; bean hole; stun gun; product safety; wrongful death; Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas; Those Disgruntled Motherfuckers That Have Been Tased; TDMTHBT; Light of Day Project; IRE Student Entry
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Seeking Justice for Jill: The Behrman Murder Investigation
WXIN-TV reporter Kimberly King spent most of 2006 looking into the police investigation of the death of Jill Behrman, an Indiana University-Bloomington sophomore who disappeared in May 2000. Her body was found in 2003, "miles from where detectives thought (she) had been killed." For the intervening three years, "investigators built their case around a convicted woman's false confession." But after the body was discovered, a lead detective sealed the public records regarding the case and did little to pursue it further. Spurred by a request from a relative of Behrman, WXIN worked on the story for three years, finally spending 2006 blowing it open. As a result, police moved further on the case.
Tags: Murder; Indiana University; police; homicide; closed cases; homicide investigations; missing persons; false confession
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Project Access
The reporters, with the help of 18 journalism students, set out to find out how public were public records. The students were sent out to request data from a range of public departments and rate their experience, the idea being that they were more representative of the general public rather than experienced journalists would be.
Tags: FOIA; public records; local government; open records; Sunshine laws
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Uncovering "Coingate"
After breaking a story of Ohio's $50 million investment in rare coins and the mired issues attached to this, in April, the (Toledo) Blade decided to dig deeper, filing public records requests with the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation to inspect the coin transaction and business records of the state's rare-coin investment. This brought a refusal from the coin fund's manager, saying the fund was exempt from the state's Open Record Laws. Once the Supreme Court of Ohio ordered the release of the records, it was discovered that $13 million dollars of the state's investment was missing.
Tags: coingate; FOIA; corruption; pension fund; Ohio Supreme Court; rare coins; Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation