Danger lurks in some adult foster care homes

After a staff member at an adult foster care home in the Duluth, Minn., area was left alone with and nearly raped by a resident who had twice been civilly committed for mental illness, the Duluth News Tribune investigated the homes and found numerous incidents of residents with severe mental illness, drug addiction and violent criminal histories being left with staff members who were poorly paid and minimally trained to handle the residents. The paper also found that the majority of the residents being cared for came from out of the county and the social workers that place them often don't tell the providers about their clients criminal backgrounds.

In a federal crackdown on the Latin Kings, a notorious street gang in Milwaukee, federal authorities had a chance to arrest a key gang leader wanted in connection with a homicide when he appeared at the county courthouse on a different case. But an investigation by Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter John Diedrich revealed a startling lack of communication that let the gang leader go free. Indeed, the federal prosecutors did not know of the missed opportunity until Diedrich told them about it. Other mistakes allowed him to evade capture a second time. Authorities believe he is in Mexico.

The latest investigation from the New England Center for Investigation Reporting challenges the notion that race was a factor in the disorderly conduct arrest of Harvard University scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr., who is black, by a white Cambridge, Mass., police officer last year. "Instead, the analysis...finds that the most common factor linking people who are arrested in Cambridge for disorderly conduct is that they were allegedly screaming or cursing in front of police."

An analysis of state data by Chris Serres and Glenn Howatt, of the Minneapolis Star Tribune, shows that "people are routinely being thrown in jail for failing to pay debts. In Minnesota, which has some of the most creditor-friendly laws in the country, the use of arrest warrants against debtors has jumped 60 percent over the past four years."

The Associated Press reported that the US-Mexico border is one of the safest parts of America, and getting safer even as politicians say more federal troops are needed to fight rising violence. The top four big cities in America with the lowest rates of violent crime are all in border states: San Diego, Phoenix, El Paso and Austin, according to a new FBI report. And an in-house Customs and Border Protection report shows that Border Patrol agents face far less danger than street cops in most U.S. cities. The Customs and Border Protection study, obtained with a Freedom of Information Act request, shows 3 percent of Border Patrol agents and officers were assaulted last year, mostly when assailants threw rocks at them. That compares with 11 percent of police officers and sheriff's deputies assaulted during the same period, usually with guns or knives.

Felons may be prohibited from buying, owning or carrying guns, but a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel investigation by reporter John Diedrich revealed a loophole in the law allows them to rent guns at gun stores and use them for target practice on indoor ranges. Indeed, gun stores are prohibited from running background checks on those wanting to rent guns – even if the store wants to take that step. The story is part of a series, Wiped Clean, that looks at how Congress protects gun dealers at the public’s expense.

Brian Joseph of The Orange County Register reports on how petitioners "tricked dozens of young Orange County voters into registering to vote as Republicans." Written complaints have been filed with state election officials by at least 99 people who have been unwittingly registered to vote Republican. A similar fraud landed eight petitioners in jail in 2006.

James Drew of The Dallas Morning News found that a criminal investigation into alleged abuse by two workers at a state veterans home in West Texas languished for more than two years because of confusion over who should investigate, cumbersome bureaucracy, and conflicts among local police, state officials, and veterans home administrators. Felony charges were filed against the ex-employees last month. Two weeks before that, in an interview with The News, the Howard County District Attorney described the lengthy review as a product of "investigations at cross purposes" — a state agency that inspects nursing homes conducting an inquiry that should have been coordinated with police.

Joe Mahr and Gerry Smith of the Chicago Tribune did a computer analysis of state police speeding tickets and driving records. They found that nearly two-thirds of the time, people caught going 100 mph or faster were given a special kind of probation that kept the tickets off their driving records. That included those triple-digit speeders cited for also weaving through traffic and those who wove around the highway that fast while drunk. One chronic speeder, given the deal once for going 100 mph plus, got the deal again after going even faster.