Atlanta 911 center mistakes put lives in danger

An investigation by D.L. Bennett, Cameron McWhirter, Heather Vogell and data analysts Megan Clarke and John Perry of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has found that the apathy and negligence of workers at the Fulton County 911 call center endangered the lives of emergency workers and of those seeking emergency help. The reporters, who reviewed nearly five years of disciplinary records, found that negligent call center workers often misdirected crews, fell asleep on the job, did not show up for work and withheld information about dangerous situations. They also found that dispatchers often failed to meet their monthly standards of efficiency from records obtained through the Georgia Open Records Act.

Fulton County is the most populous county in Georgia; Atlanta is its county seat.

A voiceofsandiego.org investigation has led to the resignation of San Diego’s downtown redevelopment chief and put the future of a $409 million hotel and condo project in question. The investigation revealed that the redevelopment chief acknowledged receiving almost $3 million in income from a business deal with a developer while her agency chose the company’s affiliate as the preferred developer for a proposed San Diego skyscraper. The official attended negotiation meetings with the developer, a revelation that surfaced after a simple California Public Records Act request to vet the official’s version of her story.

Through a FOIA request, The Center for Public Integrity obtained the Environmental Protection Agency's internal pesticide incident database, called one of the "Ten Most Wanted Government Documents" by a watchdog group. Their analysis of the more than 90,000 "adverse-reaction" reports filed by manufacturers to the EPA found that the supposedly "safe" pesticide compounds now in thousands of consumer products -- pyrethrins and pyrethroids -- lead the list of poisonings, and that the reports on these compounds have jumped 300 percent in the past decade.

An investigation by The (Toronto) Star explores the state of crime and punishment in Canada. A new law increasing mandatory minimum sentencing was passed even though Canada's crime rate has dropped over 25 percent in the last 15 years. The series looks at the monetary and social costs of the a tougher approach to crime, including how U.S. mandatory minimums have failed to have the desired impact on curbing crime. Three never-before released data sets formed the foundation for this investigation.

Mary Beth Pfeiffer and John Ferro of the Poughkeepsie Journal compiled a two-part report examining overtime at the Dutchess and Ulster county governments. The report found correction officers and deputies at the Dutchess County Sheriff's Office earned $3.9 million in overtime in 2007 - a 21 percent increase from 2006 at a time when the sheriff's payroll grew by less than 4 percent overall, and that a nursing home accounted for more than one quarter of all overtime in Ulster County.

Salon.com's Mark Benjamin and freelance journalist Christopher Weaver investigated the 2007 execution of Genei Nesir Khudair al-Janabi, an unarmed Iraqi prisoner. Three U.S. snipers were charged in the murder. "A review of thousands of pages of documents from the legal proceedings obtained by Salon shows that in the months prior to Khudair's death, the young snipers, already frustrated by guerrilla tactics, were pressed to their physical limits and pushed by officers to stretch the bounds of the laws of war in order to increase the enemy body count. "

A three-month investigation by journalism students at Humboldt State University looked into the suicide of James Lee Peters, a mentally-ill Native American inmate at Humboldt County Jail. With few people willing to talk, the students relied on public records obtained through the California Public Records Act to piece together what happened to Lee, and how the system failed him.

A Charlotte Observer investigation by Adam Bell revealed what happened behind the scenes after a race track owner threatened to move his speedway following a dispute with a community over plans to add a drag strip there. The billionaire owner landed $80 million in taxpayer incentives in exchange for staying in town. A review of more than 1,100 pages of previously confidential documents obtained under the NC Open Records Act, and interviews with more than two dozen people, detailed the lengths to which bickering local officials went to keep the track, including a last-minute decision that cost taxpayers an extra $20 million.

Brendan Smith of the Washington City Paper reports on two suicides in the Washington D.C. jail that revealed widespread misconduct and inadequate mental-health monitoring by corrections personnel. For ten months, the Director of the Department of Corrections fought a FOIA request for the reports from the internal-affairs investigations into the suicides. The reports showed that numerous personnel made false statements in an effort to cover-up wrongdoings by the DOC and Unity Health Care, the company contracted to provide psychiatric assessment and care within the jail.

A report by David Barstow of The New York Times reveals how the Pentagon has used a cadre of retired military officers to "generate favorable news coverage of the [Bush] administration