Tip leads to police corruption probe

Tony Kennedy and Paul McEnroe of the Star Tribune in Minneapolis wrote a four-part narrative investigation, “The Informant,” to chronicle a public corruption probe of Minneapolis police. Federal agents and the Minneapolis Police Department launched the investigation in late 2006 after an informant’s tip alleging that police officers were providing gang leaders with confidential police information in exchange for bribes and prostitutes. The series used confidential police internal affairs documents to piece together how the investigation unfolded and progressed.

The Washington Post's Cheryl Thompson investigated one of the most controversial police shootings Washington, D.C., has had in decades. A chain of police missteps and oversights invite questions about the killing of 14-year-old DeOnté Rawlings. Thompson ultimately found a more ambiguous picture than the police, who cleared the two off-duty officers of any wrongdoing.

Additional arrests are pending in the murder of Chauncey Bailey according to reports from the San Francisco Chronicle and The Chauncey Bailey Project. As part of a plea agreement, Devaughndre Broussard is expected to testify before a grand jury next week that he was ordered to kill Bailey by former Your Black Muslim Bakery leader Yusuf Bey IV.

A story by Andrew Becker and Patrick J. McDonnell of the Los Angeles Times has found that U.S. citizens are increasingly being mistakenly included in immigration sweeps. Reports of "mistaken detentions are drawing increased attention as immigration officials mount workplace roundups and jailhouse sweeps in search of undocumented immigrants. Immigration raids of factories and other work sites often result in at least a short-term detention of lawful residents and even citizens, as agents seal targeted businesses and grill workers about their status."

The Indianapolis Star reporter Brendan O'Shaughnessy examined the effectiveness of the city’s police surveillance cameras. According to the article, “Police say they have made a handful of arrests thanks to the cameras, including a homicide last year. But without hard data, it's hard to tell whether the cameras are worth the money.” Each camera costs $12,000 to $14,000, and the city plans to add around 40 cameras this year.

Adam Goldman and Randy Herschaft tell the story behind the hunt for Abu Ibrahim, a bombmaker who has eluded authorities for decades.  Long forgotten and even presumed dead by some, Ibrahim is very much alive, according to an Associated Press investigation.

A two-part series by the Tulsa World analyzes crime on public school campuses. Since 2005, Tulsa schools have called city police more than 9,450 times. Reasons for the calls include assaults, drug use, weapons found and burglaries. Child abuse was the leading reason for the calls, as teachers and counselors are increasingly finding abused children.

Steven Greenhouse of The New York Times reports on an investigation into New York state's workers' compensation system uncovering delays, fraudulent claims, and questionable rulings. Employees feel the system is trying to avoid paying out on claims, while employers believe fraudulent claims are rampant. "A century ago, when the state created its workers’ compensation system, the goal was a no-fault insurance program that would foster workplace harmony by resolving disputes over injuries without litigation or recrimination. Today, however, employers and employees are still at war over workplace injuries, a war marked by mistrust and fear. Each side is angry; each side has its own powerful evidence to justify that anger."

A report by Brad Heath of USA Today reveals that the nation's immigration courts "are now so clogged that nearly 90,000 people accused of being in the United States illegally waited at least two years for a judge to decide whether they must leave, one of the last bottlenecks in a push to more strictly enforce immigration laws." In the worst cases, immigrants remain in jail until their fate is determined. USA Today reviewed court dockets from immigration court cases completed between 2003 and mid-2008. These records only list completed cases, so it is impossible to know how many long-delayed cases are pending.

The latest installment of "Tobacco Underground," an investigation by the Center for Public Integrity's International Consortium of Investigative Journalists exposes how U.S. and Canadian Indian tribes and organized crime gangs are behind a $1 billion black market in smuggled cigarettes in Canada. "Over the last six years, as Ottawa and provincial governments began hiking tobacco taxes to curb smoking and raise funds, the smuggling business has grown 'exponentially,' according to the country’s national police force, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). At a time when a crumbling economy has forced governments into deficit financing, Canadian smugglers &#8212 dominated by members of Indian tribes and in some cases their mob partners &#8212 are pocketing hundreds of millions in profits. The cheap cigarettes not only fuel the spread of smoking, which costs Canadians more than C$4 billion annually in health care, but also rob governments of money that otherwise would go into official coffers to pay for healthcare and other services."