Vol. 3 Issue 30
Reflections from one year of champaign.cpdp.co
Launching champaign.cpdp.co, February 2023.
It’s been just over a year since we launched champaign.cpdp.co, a police data tool for Champaign County, IL. At launch, the site made roughly 7,000 police records from the Urbana and Champaign Police Departments accessible to the public and allowed people to look up officers in their community. Since the launch, the site has also been filling up with our team’s investigative reporting. Stories in the last year include:
Champaign hired current police chief Timothy Tyler despite a disciplinary record that included a domestic incident that resulted in a weeklong suspension. Our reporting showed that members of City Council were not informed of his disciplinary history before he was hired.
Our earlier reporting, also revealed that the police chief declined to update the CPD’s training or policies around responding to domestic violence calls, even though the previous chief had noted a pattern of non-compliance with state laws by officers and instituted a retraining program.
After police in the neighboring town of Rantoul shot and killed two young Black men in the span of just a few months, the department’s basic use of force reviews resulted in training recommendations. However, even those have not been implemented beyond sending one of the involved officers to a gun range.
Urbana Police officer John Franquemont accumulated allegations of misconduct and excessive force, but it took years for the department to take action. Our reporting showed the many loopholes in the city’s system for responding to use of force by its officers.
We are immensely grateful to our collaborators in Champaign-Urbana, including Farrah Anderson, an investigative reporting fellow with Invisible Institute and Illinois Public Media; local journalist Brian Dolinar; and our media partners: Reginald Hardwick and Christine Herman at Illinois Public Media, Brant Houston and Dylan Tiger from CU-CitizenAccess, and Janice Jayes and the rest of the editorial board of local independent newspaper Public i.
We also appreciate the dozens of residents who have talked to our team, hosted events, and helped us build relationships over the last two years. Our work in Champaign-Urbana reinforced a major lesson for our team: access to data matters, but it needs to go hand in hand with ongoing conversations and reporting that helps connect the data to how people experience policing in their communities.
In the coming months we plan to update the data on champaign.cpdp.co and publish more investigations. We’re excited for what’s to come.
Andrew Fan
Executive Director
You Didn't See Nothin, "See No Evil" and "Missing in Chicago" named finalists for 2023 Peter Lisagor Awards
We're thrilled to share that our latest audio investigative podcast and two recent investigations have been nominated for numerous Lisagor awards.
You Didn't See Nothin is a finalist for Best Featured Reporter or Host, Best Feature Reporting Series - Audio, Best Investigative Reporting - Audio, and Best Reporting on Race and Diversity - Audio.
Jamie Kalven's reporting "See No Evil" published by The Intercept, has been nominated in the categories Best Reporting on Crime and Justice - Large Publication, and Best Reporting on Race and Diversity - Large Publication.
"Missing in Chicago," our investigation in partnership with City Bureau, is a finalist in eight categories: Watchdog Award, Best Investigative Reporting, Best Multimedia Collaboration, Best Public Service or Engagement, Best Use of Feature Video, Best Social or Short-Form Video, Best Reporting on Crime and Justice - Small Publication, and Best Reporting on Race and Diversity - Small Publication.
Award recipients will be announced at a dinner ceremony Friday, May 10, at the Union League Club of Chicago.
See all finalists →
"A Catalog of Infamy" - Chicago Reader and Invisible Institute Series
In the latest in a co-reported series, reporters Sam Stecklow, Max Blaisdell, and Matt Chapman continue investigating the State’s Attorney’s Brady lists and the cops who appear on them, including at least 20 officers who continued to make arrests after the State’s Attorney’s office had flagged them for misconduct or dishonesty.
“A Catalog of Infamy” is a series on Brady cops and practices at the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office, Chicago Police Department, and suburban police departments by the Invisible Institute and the Reader. This reporting was supported by the Fund for Investigative Journalism.
Disgraced Cops Still on the streets and in courtrooms →
Delaware opened up access to some police misconduct records — but still denies requests for basic police data
Delaware is one of 15 states refusing access to basic police records.
As Sam Stecklow writes in the Delaware Call, access to information on employment and certification history is crucial to curtailing the issue of wandering officers, like Thomas Webster IV, who move from department to department after complaints and misconduct only to continue a pattern of aggressive and abusive policing because this information is not readily accessible by the public.
This story is part of our work to better understand the legal and political conditions of police data transparency on a national level. In partnership with a host of newsrooms, nonprofits, and media organizations alongside Big Local News, we are pushing to obtain crucial data around officer certification and employment history nationwide.
Invisible Institute is also a journalistic advisor in a lawsuit brought by ACLU of Delaware representing Delaware Call, a nonprofit news outlet based in Wilmington, seeking the First State’s police certification and employment history data. This joins cases filed on our behalf and on behalf of reporting partners in Colorado, Michigan, New York, and Utah.
Save the Date
Our work coheres around a central principle: we as citizens have co-responsibility with the government for maintaining respect for human rights and, when abuses occur, for demanding redress.
What is redress? How do we define it and when do we know we have reached it?
To explore this question, Invisible Institute is excited to launch a book club for supporters interested in learning more about Restorative Justice alongside staff members. We will be reading The Little Book of Restorative Justice by Howard Zehr. Join us as we build our capacity to support the process of healing and gain a clearer picture of where we might go from here. We will meet once in person at Pilsen Community Books on June 15th and Online on Zoom on September 17th. Registration for this event is coming soon.
We will also incorporate insights from Facing Shame: From Saying Sorry to Doing Sorry in Beyond Survival: Strategies and Stories from the Transformative Justice Movement. Books are available at the Chicago Public Library and Pilsen Community Books. Please support CPL or a local independent book store.
Please email, kaitlynn@invisibleinstitute.com with questions.
