The Scoop

Allison Klein and Dan Keating of the Washington Post used local crime data to show that “some of Washington’s most vibrant neighborhoods, destinations for suburbanites, barhoppers and urban professionals, share a lesser-known distinction: They have the highest concentrations of holdups in the city.” On Friday and Saturday nights, up to five robberies an hour occur [...]

Tony Bartleme of the Charleston Post and Courier used local data to show that “during an 18-month period, North Charleston police fired or threatened to use their Tasers 201 times. During the past six months, officers used them especially often, firing them an average of once every 40 hours. Despite all these stuns, few people [...]

Deborah L. Shelton and Jaimi Dowdell of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch used local data to revisit a topic the paper first examined five years ago: ambulance diversions from full hospitals. “Five years after Missouri hospital officials vowed to get a handle on the problem, many emergency departments in the St. Louis area still regularly turn [...]

Theodore Kim of the Indianapolis Star used local records on homeland security spending to show that “counties haven’t coordinated spending and have ended up buying redundant or outlandish gear that might never be used. Other purchases have served more to support day-to-day police and fire operations than to prepare for disasters.” A lack of uniformity [...]

Patrick Lakamp of the Buffalo News analyzed 21,000 city parking tickets from a three-month period this year when police stepped up their enforcement. Among the findings: Police officers cited drivers for no-parking and no-standing violations more than any other violations, but wrote relatively few tickets for parking at expired meters or too far from a [...]