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 10, 2024

5 takeaways from our series on St. Louis homicide investigations

The police department has struggled to solve homicides, partly due to shoddy detective work, staffing shortages and eroding community trust.

June 7, 2024

St. Louis homicide cases often go unsolved. Victims’ families want justice.

These St. Louis families have waited years for answers. They say police seem to have forgotten their loved ones.

June 6, 2024

As murders increased, St. Louis police struggled for resources to solve cases

The city’s homicide unit has dealt with short staffing, long hours and a ballooning DNA backlog.

June 5, 2024

Some St. Louis detectives may have botched homicide investigations

Several officers in the homicide unit faced internal complaints that they slept on the job, failed to get key evidence and lied to superiors.

June 4, 2024

In St. Louis, a racial disparity in whose killings get solved

In the past decade, police solved fewer than half of the homicide cases with Black victims and two-thirds of the cases with white ones.

June 3, 2024

How we reported on homicide investigations in St. Louis

Getting and interpreting homicide clearance data involved litigation, complex analysis and patience.

June 3, 2024

Why 1,000 homicides in St. Louis remain unsolved

In one of America's deadliest cities, police have struggled to solve killings due to staffing shortages, shoddy detective work and lack of community trust.

March 20, 2024

Judges use ‘arbitrary,’ ‘horrendous’ reasons to keep teens in adult court

Maryland automatically charges more teens as adults than almost any other state. An analysis of recent decisions found that some judges rely on what juvenile justice advocates say is unfair reasoning to keep those young people in adult court.

July 17, 2023

St. Louis police data: Nearly 60% of homicides committed since 2017 are unsolved

Newly released data reveals no resolution for the families of hundreds of homicide victims. Police refused to release homicide clearance data, so we sued to find out.

March 31, 2022

St. Louis' murder total has fallen, but some killings went uncounted

St. Louis officials are celebrating a big drop in murders while the city’s police classify more and more killings as “justifiable homicides” instead.

November 22, 2021

St. Louis cops are hiding key details about homicide cases from the public

Despite killings on the rise and the highest homicide rate among big cities, St. Louis police say they don’t have to tell the public which cases have been solved. APM Reports has filed a lawsuit for the information.

June 24, 2021

21 states still don’t require de-escalation training for police

Studies have shown that teaching officers to de-escalate confrontations can reduce violent encounters, but many states don’t mandate it.

April 17, 2021

The Jail Tapes in the Dumpster

A murder conviction sent Myon Burrell to prison for life when he was a teenager. An investigative reporter dug into what seemed a hopeless case. What she found helped free him.

March 2, 2021

Mississippi to pay Curtis Flowers $500,000 for his decades behind bars

Judge orders state to give Flowers the maximum compensation for his wrongful conviction.

October 14, 2020

Will Doug Evans face accountability?

Prosecutors across the country rarely face consequences for misconduct.

September 11, 2020

Judge dismisses lawsuit against DA Doug Evans

The suit had asked a federal court to prevent Evans’ office from dismissing jurors because of their race.

September 4, 2020

Charges against Curtis Flowers are dropped

The Mississippi man who was tried six times for the same crime and whose case was the subject of Season 2 of the APM Reports podcast In the Dark sees his two-decade saga come to an end.

June 30, 2020

What happened at Minneapolis' 3rd Precinct — and what it means

Faced with angry, violent protesters after George Floyd’s death, Minneapolis city leaders made the unprecedented decision to abandon a police station. It marked not only the further erosion of the department’s relationship with the community, but perhaps the beginning of a shift in American policing.

June 17, 2020

Atlanta cop who killed Rayshard Brooks had prior controversial shooting

Officer Garrett Rolfe was involved in a questionable and bizarre 2015 incident.

March 17, 2020

Vermont police shooting was preventable, report finds

A state commission spent two years investigating the 2016 death of Phil Grenon, who was killed by officers after a Taser failed to subdue him.

January 28, 2020

Myon Burrell

APM Reports teamed up with the Associated Press to investigate the murder case against 16-year-old Myon Burrell. Burrell was serving a life sentence for the 2002 shooting death of 11-year-old Tyesha Edwards in Minneapolis. In December 2020, Burrell's sentence was commuted and he was released after 18 years in prison.

Mississippi prosecutor Doug Evans takes himself off the Curtis Flowers case

January 6, 2020