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.

The Columbus Dispatch, in a four-part investigative series, explores the consequences in communities across the nation as states pass anti-immigration laws. The newspaper teamed with its Spanish-language weekly newspaper to produce the series, American Divide/The Immigration Crackdown.  The report is available in both English and Spanish.

An investigation by the St. Petersburg Times links Polk County sheriff, Sgt. Scott Larson, to a 2002 car accident that killed the car's 16-year-old passenger, Miles White.  The Polk County Sheriff's office ruled the crash was a single-car accident caused by drunk driving.  "But a Polk sheriff's deputy — who, it turns out, was a sexual predator of young men — had chased the boys at more than 100 mph. The St. Petersburg Times has found information that indicates the deputy's cruiser hit the Passat before it crashed."  Larson is currently serving a prison term for sexual battery and practicing medicine without a license.   His supervisors maintain that his "sexual proclivities had nothing to do with his 'surveillance''' of young men in the vehicle that crashed.

"Despite enforcement efforts, human traffickers and prostitution operators have constructed resilient and lucrative networks of organized crime that have a franchise-like ability to persist and prosper," reports Lise Olsen of the Houston Chronicle.   Cantinas, with secret doors and hidden brothels, helped conceal the active prostitution and sex slave trade in Houston.  The ringleader of the trade, Gerardo Salazar, avoided prosecution in 2005 by escaping to Mexico.  Two of his associates were recently arrested for holding a teenager hostage as a sex slave.  The bar where she was held, Maria Bonita Cantina, remains open under new ownership.

A five-part series by The Post and Courier (Charleston, S.C.) explores how the probation and parole system in South Carolina — and many other states — is broken.  Criminals are being paroled at the expense of innocent people who are being killed, raped or robbed as a result.

The coroner and police reports from the 2004 death of Kathy Savio raise many questions about how the original investigation was handled, report Erika Slife and Matthew Walberg of the Chicago Tribune.  "The investigators and experts re-examining her death as a possible murder are now asking how police could have been so quick to overlook signs that something sinister may have happened to the third wife of  Drew Peterson, then a sergeant for the Bolingbrook Police Department." The Tribune's review of of the reports reveal information that calls into question why the police were so quick to dismiss the potential of foul play.  The investigation was reopened after Peterson's fourth wife disappeared in late 2007.  Savio's death is being pursued as a murder investigation following a second autopsy indicating her cause of death as homicide.

Robert McClendon of Columbus, Ohio was freed from prison by a Franklin County judge after serving 18 years for a child rape that new DNA tests showed he did not commit, report Geoff Dutton and Mike Wagner of The Columbus Dispatch. McClendon was one of 30 prisoners identified by The Columbus Dispatch and the Ohio Innocence Project as strong candidates for DNA re-examination and highlighted in the Dispatch's Test of Convictions series.

An FBI raid at three Southern California hospitals uncovered "a massive scheme to defraud taxpayer-funded healthcare programs of millions of dollars by recruiting homeless patients for unnecessary medical services," according to a report in The Los Angeles Times. The chief executive at one hospital faces criminal charges, while executives from two other facilities have been named in a civil suit filed by the City of Los Angeles. Additional charges are expected as the investigation continues.

Following the apparent strangulation death of 19-year-old inmate Ronnie L. White, the Prince George's County Jail has been under intense scrutiny. A report by Debbie Cenziper and James Hohman, of The Washington Post, revealed that more than a dozen correction officers at the facility have arrest records, yet many have been retained on staff. "The officers' legal troubles raise more questions about the jail's management and the caliber and competency of those responsible for keeping order."

Geoff Dutton and Mike Wagner, of The Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch, report that DNA results recently returned show that Robert McClendon, an Ohio inmate who has served 18 years for rape, is not a match for the semen found on the underwear of the 10-year-old victim. "McClendon's case was highlighted in 'Test of Convictions,' a five-day series in January that exposed flaws in Ohio's prisoner DNA-testing program and identified 30 cases that were prime candidates for testing." McClendon was the first inmate of those identified in the series to complete the DNA testing process.