Learn about using police employment and misconduct data housed in the National Police Index and Police Records Access Project, two new databases for use by journalists, attorneys, researchers, and members of the public.

We'll be presenting at @ire.org's AccessFest this weekend.

This story has been cited in a brief today filed on behalf of a coalition of news media organizations — including @invisible.institute, @startribune.com, @mprnews.org, @axios.com, & @propublica.org.

Read the full brief, and selected other filings, here: www.documentcloud.org/documents/26...

See if your state has released police employment history data here: invisible.institute/national-pol...

today in names

RIP South Side Chicago artist Turtel Onli. He founded a Black comics movement in Chicago, and on a personal note, created some of my favorite covers and other illustrations while I was managing editor for @southsideweekly.bsky.social. www.hpherald.com/evening_dige...

Launching today on the National Police Index: police employment data in New Mexico, plus five other states. Access your state's data here: national.cpdp.co

This was, of course, not true, and contradicted by records that we obtained from CO POST. POST had actually specified that its database software should have query capabilities, which its vendor promised to provide. That led to a multimillion-dollar contract. www.documentcloud.org/documents/21...

He held a hearing to consider the second question. Deputy AG Natalie Hanlon Leh testified that POST's IT told her that "you can't just export data from these databases," and therefore POST couldn't reasonably remove potentially undercover officers. www.documentcloud.org/documents/23...

Since then, all that has been released about his decision to decline charges have been 1-sentence emails made public only after #FOIA requests.

"If you are required to do a FOIA request to receive the information, it has not been publicly released," said an expert w/ @impactforequity.bsky.social.

More evidence that the Massachusetts POST Commission’s public police misconduct database has major gaps: a state trooper with a history of substantiated misconduct was all but missing, except for the case he was criminally charged in, @bostonglobe.com reports. www.bostonglobe.com/2024/12/01/m...

After we published this story in @southsideweekly.bsky.social, I got back records from IDOT confirming the lease (and forwarded them to you). Unfortunately, we didn’t pursue it further to my memory. A historic fumble.

Yes. Chinatown activists told @elaineywchen.bsky.social for this story that they suspected the Chinatown Chamber of Commerce knew the lot was going to be sold. 1/ southsideweekly.com/taxing-divid...

One of his disciplinary cases: a 7-day suspension for conducting himself "unfavorably" in a 2008 domestic violence incident with an ex-girlfriend, a Chicago police officer. Tyler and the girlfriend pulled their weapons on each other and were separated by backup that she called.

A version of the story also ran as Salt Lake City Weekly's cover story: www.cityweekly.net/utah/one-of-...

In another case, in Florida state court, a judge found that Wallentine's opinion claiming that police had no choice but to shoot a man in a mental health crisis who was aiming a rifle at himself was “not credible based on common sense, physiology, and physics.”

He became a VP for LexiPol, and testified that their use of force policies don't “go out the door without my fingerprints all over” them.

Then and since, LexiPol has been criticized for discouraging police from limiting use of force beyond what the Supreme Court requires.