Policing and Criminal Justice

Their names have become famous: Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Alton Sterling, Tamir Rice, Philando Castile, and now George Floyd. All were black men or boys killed by police, and their deaths sparked outrage and protests across the nation and the globe. Following these tragedies, APM Reports has produced stories investigating police tactics, training, hiring practices, weapons and efforts to hold officers accountable for abuse. In addition, reporters have examined numerous criminal justice issues.

June 12, 2018

The rise and reign of Doug Evans

How to spend nearly three decades in office.

June 12, 2018

Mississippi D.A. Doug Evans has long history of striking Black people from juries

We gathered data on juries in central Mississippi going back 26 years. Analyzing hundreds of trials, we found that prosecutors were more than four times more likely to exclude Black jurors.

June 12, 2018

Mississippi D.A. Doug Evans has long history of striking Black people from juries

We gathered data on juries in central Mississippi going back 26 years. Analyzing hundreds of trials, we found that prosecutors were more than four times more likely to exclude Black jurors.

June 5, 2018

How did Curtis Flowers end up with a nearly all-white jury?

In 2010, a jury of 11 whites and one African-American convicted Flowers and sentenced him to death. Defense attorneys would later claim the trial essentially had been decided in jury selection. Here's how it went down.

June 5, 2018

Acquitting Emmett Till's killers

There was overwhelming evidence that J.W. Milam and Roy Bryant had murdered the 14-year-old in 1955, but they never spent a day in prison thanks to an all-white jury.

June 5, 2018

Why a nearly all-white jury might be legal

When is a strike legal? Take our quiz below and try to spot an unconstitutional strike, using potential jurors from trials in the Fifth Circuit Court District, where Doug Evans is district attorney, and the reasons given for striking them.

May 29, 2018

Letter from Parchman: Inside Mississippi's notorious prison

The state penitentiary began more than a century ago as a way to subjugate African-Americans after the end of slavery, and it later maintained segregation well into the 1970s. And it's where Curtis Flowers has spent much of his adult life, sometimes in brutal conditions.

May 29, 2018

What does Odell Hallmon's reversal mean for the Curtis Flowers case?

The jailhouse informant's testimony helped win a conviction — and his recantation might scuttle it.

May 15, 2018

Inside the Leflore County Jail: A cell of snitches

After his arrest in 1997, Curtis Flowers was placed in a small cell with up to eight other inmates. Here's what happened next, in their own words.

May 15, 2018

What exactly are prosecutors allowed to do?

They can rely on jailhouse informants, if the testimony is true.

May 8, 2018

Could they really match those bullets in the Tardy Furniture case?

Ballistics evidence helped send Curtis Flowers to death row, but critics say the field is subjective and unscientific.

May 8, 2018

On the trail of Doyle Simpson in Louisiana

How a key player in the Curtis Flowers case came to need a gun.

May 1, 2018

The Tardy Furniture store murders: What happened that morning in July '96?

In the hours after the shootings, investigators were under tremendous pressure to solve the crime. But they had little evidence to go on.

May 1, 2018

How can someone be tried six times for the same crime?

Why double jeopardy doesn't apply in the Curtis Flowers case.

May 1, 2018

Map: Where in Winona was Curtis Flowers?

This is the route prosecutors said Curtis Flowers walked on the morning of the Tardy Furniture murders, based on witness testimony from Trial 1.

January 31, 2018

Minneapolis increases psychological testing for police officers

The city's police department has hired a new psychologist to improve the way it screens recruits after an APM Reports investigation revealed that its procedures didn't meet national standards.

December 20, 2017

Some states training police to use words, not guns

A follow up to an APM Reports investigation finds that five additional states have mandated de-escalation training for officers, bringing the total to only 21.

December 14, 2017

Minneapolis police recruits get less psychological testing than they used to

The protocol is less rigorous than best practices nationally and the evaluator lacked the proper license. Police leaders are moving to replace him for another reason: They believe he screened out too many minority candidates.

May 5, 2017

Most states neglect ordering police to learn de-escalation tactics to avoid shootings

In 34 states, training decisions are left to local agencies. Most, though, conduct no, or very little, de-escalation training. Chiefs cite cost, lack of staff, and a belief that the training isn't needed.

May 5, 2017

Three case studies: When police untrained in de-escalation shoot unarmed people

A review of 31 cases shows more than half of officers involved had fewer than two hours of training past five years.

April 25, 2017

Sanner retires suddenly; Rassier files suit, claiming mistreatment by Sanner and others

Sanner, who led Wetterling investigation, has not apologized to Rassier, and has said he stands behind his actions as sheriff for 14 years. He hasn't commented on the lawsuit.

January 9, 2017

Ryan Larson files federal lawsuit against Stearns County sheriff, attorney and others

Update from Episode 8: The man falsely suspected of killing a police officer claims his constitutional rights were violated.

December 30, 2016

It took nearly 27 years to solve a notorious child abduction. Why?

Reporter Madeleine Baran, host of the podcast In the Dark, writes the story of how the 1989 abduction of Jacob Wetterling in central Minnesota baffled local, state and federal investigators for years. In four chapters, she reports why it shouldn't have.

October 4, 2016

Sex-offender registries: How the Wetterling abduction changed the country

The number of people on the nation's sex-offender registries has exploded to hundreds of thousands. But researchers question the registries' effectiveness, note their inconsistencies and suggest they might be doing more harm than good. Even Patty Wetterling has changed her views.

September 27, 2016

What did Dan Rassier say when he called 911 the night of the abduction? We don't know

APM Reports tried to get a transcript of Dan Rassier's 911 call. First the Sheriff's Office said no; then it said it didn't have it.

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