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 "waiting time" ...
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Wilmington's Street Wars
Wilmington, Del., has become one of the most violent cities of its size in America. Nothing dramatized that fact more than several spectacular shootings in 2012, including one day in June when three people were shot to death in separate incidents, and a shootout a few weeks later at a soccer tournament that killed three people -- including a teenager waiting to play the game he loved. To document and study the violence he and other News Journal colleagues were covering, senior reporter Cris Barrish gathered information for a database detailing the 158 shootings, including 42 homicides, over a 20-month period. He learned that police made arrests in only one-third of the cases, many of which collapsed in court. His research into why police could not solve cases led to the revelation that both shooting suspects and victims had been arrested an average of about two dozen times, with many qualifying as habitual criminals -- a phenomenon that some authorities call "thugicide.'' His stories also explored the “don’t snitch’’ code of the streets that cripples prosecution of these cases, not only by the men on both sides of the gun barrel, but also by residents who are terrified of the gunmen and distrustful of law enforcement.
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Parking Patients
"Parking Patients" examined the amount of time hospitals in the Memphis area were taking to assume custody of patients brought to their emergency departments by city ambulances. In hundreds of cases we found patients were spending hours strapped to ambulance stretchers, waiting inside emergency departments for hospital staff to sign off on the transfer of care. In the meantime, city paramedics were tied up waiting with the patients and unavailable to answer other emergency calls. We found dozens of cases in the last year in which the city ran out of available ambulances to answer these calls, and had to rely on private companies to fill the gap, sometimes resulting in longer response times. The fire department blamed these shortages on the practice of hospitals using paramedics as "free labor."
Tags: broadcast; hospitals; paramedics; patients; waiting; ambulances
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Still Waiting After All These Years
The story examines the scandal of America's untested rape kits and tells the story of one woman who waited 13 years for her kit to be processed, during which time her attacker raped again. The story illustrates a larger issue -- a staggering 180,000 rape kits remain untested nationwide.
Tags: rape; rape kits; sex offense; untested rape kits
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"Losing 'Letta"
A sloppy police investigation led to a mother waiting 27 painful years for her daughter's remains to be identified. The girl was 12 when she disappeared from her Little Rock home. A girl's remains were located in 1991, but DNA testing did not reveal a match. In 2009, a retest was done after "prodding" from reporters. This time, the test revealed a match and the child's case was ruled a homicide.
Tags: Little Rock; DNA test; Arkansas Crime Lab; FBI
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Code 3
"'Code 3,' a two-day series that focused on ambulance delays in San Francisco, provided a rare glimpse inside an inherently complex and often secretive bureaucracy." Findings included: 439 people died while waiting for the ambulance to arrive; in 27 percent of high-priority medical calls, first responders failed to meet the city's time standard; and the city's 911 call center was the weakest link.
Tags: Philip Meyer Award; ambulance; response time; 911; Fire Department; Department of Emergency Management; death; medicine;
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Politifact.com
Politifact is a fact-checking website that focuses on the statements of the 2008 Presidential candidates, and rates the truth of each fact stated by the candidates. Statements are rated via the "Truth-O-Meter," a scale that used terms such as Pants on Fire, or Mostly True to verify what is being said. The St. Petersburg Times analyzes in further detail the truth of said facts that Politifact rates.
Tags: Lie detector; Mitt Romney; Hillary Clinton; 2008 Presidential Race; Rudy Giuliani; Barack Obama; Mike Huckabee
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Soaring Home Prices in the Bay Area
This investigation by the St. Petersburg-Times looks at the skyrocketing price of real estate in Tampa Bay area homes. Reporters analyzed more than 260,000 homes in 300 neighborhoods to discover a new prospect of wealth for homeowners. "This has changed the face of neighborhoods, created wealth for middle class homeowners unthinkable short of winning the lottery and turned some into overnight land speculators."
Tags: None
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Prison Medicine: Costly Decisions, Dire Consequences
The Dispatch follows the lead from the death of a 19-year old inmate Sean Schwamberger from an undetected drug-resistant staph infection, in order to carry out a detailed investigation of healthcare in prisons. The revelations are startling. While some critically ill inmates died after waiting an hour for ambulances, some went without surgery for 16 months during which time their ailments worsened. It was also found that the track record of some physicians who treated the inmates, included felony. And amid complaints of the low caliber and poor performance of contractor-provided physicians, the taxpayer pays more than $1 million in bills to pay wrongful death and medical negligence claims filed by inmates and their families.
Tags: Gov. Bob Taft; Pickaway Correctional Institution; Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction; Dr. Bruce Martin
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Prison Medicine
An in-depth report on the state of medicine and medical treatment within Ohio's prison system. Investigators found several problems with the system, doctors performing procedures they are not authorized to perform, inmate hearing loss due to medical technician's mistakes, etc. One inmate pulled his own tooth after being turned away from treatment 5 times. Another waited 18 hours for stitches. The problems in this system are numerous, and this story highlights them all.
Tags: TAPE; TRANSCRIPT; questionnaire included; medicine; prison; doctors
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911 Response Times Vary in County
An investigation into the response times of various calls to 911 yields evidence that shows that calls are taken on a prioritized basis, not chronological. For instance, a person whose house had been burglarized would be of less importance that a person who was shot. The downside to this, though, is that sometimes people wait for more than 5 hours after calling for emergency help. This story looks at some of the factors playing into the discrepancies and what can be done to help.