Vol. 3 Issue 16

New Interim Executive Director at the Invisible Institute

The Board of Directors of the Invisible Institute has appointed Andrew Fan to the position of Interim Executive Director beginning on September 5, 2022, when Hilesh Patel departs from his current position as Executive Director. Read a letter from Andrew, below, and the statement from our board on our website.

“It’s an honor to have served as director of this amazing organization and play a part in facilitating its evolution,” says outgoing director Hilesh Patel.  “The Invisible Institute has attracted a group of experienced and committed professionals who will continue to grow and have a visible impact in Chicago.”

August 16, 2022
A Note from Incoming Interim Executive Director, Andrew Fan:

Over the last year, Hilesh Patel has led our team through a crucial phase of the Invisible Institute's development. This September, he will be stepping down from his position as Executive Director. He leaves an organization that is stronger than when he arrived. Hilesh is a deeply thoughtful person whose care for the people at this organization is clear in his daily work with our staff. I am grateful that he will continue to support us in an advisory role in the coming months.

With Hilesh stepping down, the Invisible Institute's board of directors has asked me to serve as the Interim Executive Director for the next year. I have worked as the organization's chief operating officer since 2020 and as a reporter since 2017. I've participated in a range of projects, including helping to clean the data behind CPDP.co and leading the team of Invisible Institute reporters who co-produced Mauled, our Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation into police dogs. I'm excited to step into this new role and to continue supporting the team as we produce vital investigative reporting and documentation of human rights abuses. 

I did not set out to become a journalist – I was working at a bank when the Invisible Institute team first brought me in to analyze some police data – but I've stayed with this work because of the team at this organization. I deeply admire how my colleagues put serious care into all elements of human rights reporting and particularly how they form lasting relationships in the communities we cover.

I am especially gratified that Alison Flowers will continue to lead our journalism program with the new title of Head of Productions and Investigations. Alison’s investigative skills and commitment to community-centered reporting have produced some of our most impactful work, including the podcast Somebody. 

Alison is part of a leadership team that will continue to set strategic priorities and manage the day-to-day work of the Invisible Institute. The other members of the leadership team include Anwuli Anigbo (Development Director), Chaclyn Hunt (Legal Director), Maira Khwaja (Director of Public Strategy), and Trina Reynolds-Tyler (Director of Data). Jamie Kalven will continue to work full-time with the team as an editor and reporter.

Jamie oftens emphasizes the “quality of attention” we bring to the work. I see care in the way reporters Dana Brozost-Kelleher and Yohance Lacour engage with people writing us from prison and in the persistence with which reporters Sam Stecklow and Isra Rahman and our technologist Maheen Khan have engaged with people across Illinois about policing in rural communities and small cities.

Our team has important work to share in the coming months, including the release of our next podcast, the launch of our police data site in Champaign-Urbana, long-awaited updates to CPDP.co, and additions to the Chicago Police Torture Archive. Your donations to this work will be matched dollar for dollar, up to $150k, by the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation. 

We have exciting work ahead, and I am grateful to be a part of it. Thank you for your attention and support.

Andrew Fan
Interim Executive Director

New, unedited body camera footage has been released from the 2018 police killing of Harith Augustus – making it possible to examine police actions immediately after Officer Dillan Halley killed Augustus.

Jamie Kalven returns to the investigation, Six Durations of a Split Second: The Killing of Harith Augustus, and analyzes how for the Chicago Police Department at every level, the question in the seconds after a police shooting is not: What happened? It is: How do we justify what happened? 

Read more in The Intercept→ 

Our Beneath the Surface team will host our second annual summer gathering to celebrate the volunteers, participants, and partners in our long-term investigations into gender based violence. Join us for snacks, drinks, music, and data visualization activities in Bessie Coleman Park (5445 S. Drexel Ave), on Saturday, August 27 from 2-6pm.

RSVP here→ 

The exhibit, Remaking the Exceptional: Tea, Torture, & Reparations, Chicago to Guantánamo, at DePaul Art Museum closed on August 7, 2022. Many of the materials are available for public use, including our installation on the connections between Chicago Police and the U.S. Military, a podcast of interviews with torture survivors, and a recording of the exhibition's book launch event.

The accompanying book, featuring original research by Maira Khwaja and co-edited by our fellow Audrey Petty, is available for purchase here. 

We are welcoming Laurence Ralph, a professor at Princeton University, for a partnership with us this fall. We will co-host screenings of his New York Times opinion-documentary “The Torture Letters” and host a series of public discussions about police use-of-force practices with Chicagoans from all demographics and backgrounds.

Ralph received his PhD in anthropology at the University of Chicago, focusing his research on community activism in the West Side of Chicago. Ralph later published The Torture Letters, a book of ethnographic letters addressed to Chicagoans–mayors, police superintendants, activists, school children, former cops–about how the the decades-long police practice of using torture methods to coerce confessions from largely Black and Brown men was possible.
 

More details to come in future editions of VTFG–we hope to see you in person at his events in the coming months.