LATEST INVESTIGATIONS
Over the last two years, reporters Sarah Conway (City Bureau) and trina reynolds-tyler (Invisible Institute) conducted a three-part investigation into how the Chicago Police Department (CPD) handles missing person cases.
From 2000 to 2021, Chicago Police categorized 99.8 percent of missing person cases as “not criminal in nature.” Our investigation calls this number into question.
Our reporters found 11 missing persons cases that the department listed as "closed - non-criminal" even though the victim had been murdered.
LaTanya Moore posing with a photograph of her daughter Shantieya Smith
Sebastián Hidalgo, 2023
Beneath the Surface has developed a groundbreaking approach to using police records to understand patterns of misconduct.
Judy successfully identified patterns of complaints that were previously unknown to our team, including a cluster of cases involving police misconduct in missing persons cases.
Our data team uncovered a pattern of Chicago Police officers allegedly ignoring sexual assault cases or mistreating sexual assault survivors, including dozens of children.
The data also show how CPD’s Bureau of Internal Affairs (BIA) often fails to adequately investigate these cases and or to identify troubling patterns in police behavior.
The records also demonstrate that BIA almost never sustained complaints against Chicago Police officers accused of misconduct in sexual assault cases.
We will make these documents public on a rolling basis, as we identify and analyze patterns of gender-based violence. Read the allegations on the Library of Misconduct Complaints.
Previous Investigations
Following the invasion of Anjanette Young’s home in an improper police raid, trina reynolds-tyler and and Maira Khwaja write about Chicago Police Department’s Pattern and Practice of Home Invasions for the South Side Weekly. Through their reporting, they identified fifty complaints connected to home invasions in Chicago that occurred between 2011 and 2015.
