It's Your Week. We're exposing police failures.
In police departments across the country, an unofficial system of retaliation is enforced by cops who don't tell on cops. It's a code, known as the Blue Wall of Silence, that allows misconduct to persist and helps leaders avoid accountability.
And for whistleblowers who dare break this code? They're punished, fired, jailed – and in at least one case, forcibly admitted to a psychiatric ward.
In building a catalogue of more than 300 examples from the past decade, Paste BN reporters found there is no wrongdoing so egregious or clear cut that a whistleblower can feel safe in bringing it to light.
"My team and I have been reporting this investigation for months," said Brett Murphy, investigative reporter for Paste BN. "And it could not have happened without the police sources who were willing to speak with us about their experiences — many of whom were whistleblowers already fearful of more retaliation."
The impact?
"Already, we're hearing talk of creating an independent inspector general to give whistleblowers a safe place to report," says Editor in Chief Nicole Carroll. "We're hearing that agencies are discussing their internal practices, now that the attention is on them."
It's Alex and Kristina, and this is Your Week, a subscriber-only newsletter that highlights Paste BN's most impactful coverage. Your investment in Paste BN's journalism empowers this investigative reporting, and it's leading to change. Thank you.
Don't miss the story: Dead rats, death threats, destroyed careers. How law enforcement punishes its whistleblowers.
Read the first installment of the series: A police officer exposed a video showing a death in custody. Now he’s facing prison time.
News at a glance
- What documents does Trump not want the Jan. 6 House panel to see? Appointments, call logs and handwritten notes.
- As Alec Baldwin faces a lawsuit for 'Rust' tragedy, all eyes are on the gun that killed Halyna Hutchins.
- Opinion: Aaron Rodgers fooled a lot of people ... including me.
- Stalled progress on the Equality Act leaves the LGBTQ community to continue to build its own safe places.
- L.A. and Chicago are giving away cash with no strings attached. Are universal basic income programs working?
- Does the steering wheel need to be round? Tesla's Elon Musk introduces new yoke-shaped wheel.
- Neglected kids are shipped from North Carolina to out-of-state psychiatric facilities. Some are traumatized again.
- 'Invest in inflation': As costs soar, putting more money into stocks may be good for your 401(k).
More news worth a deeper dive
1. Britney Spears is free. Now comes the hard part. Family law experts say Spears’ newfound freedom after 13 years of a constricting fiscal and personal conservatorship is likely to prove challenging. “It’s going to be a rough six to 12 months, because it’s difficult to go from no control to full control,” says lawyer Holly Davis of Kirker Davis in Austin, Texas. Spears also has to make sure that the famously erratic behavior that led to the 2008 conservatorship overseen by her father, Jamie Spears, doesn’t return. “The coming years have to be about showing that she’s OK,” Davis said.
2. Whatever findings flow from the Houston police investigation into the tragedy that left nine people dead at rapper Travis Scott's Astroworld concert, two questions cry out for answers, writes Paste BN's Editorial Board. How much authority over the event did the city and Harris County cede to the performer and concert promoter Live Nation Entertainment? And who was making decisions about whether the show should be stopped when people started dying?
3. Millions of college students use Chegg, a website that sells itself as a one-stop shop for collegians who need help with their studies. But professors say it enables cheating. And students who use the sites, especially with their real names, make themselves vulnerable to possible attempts of blackmail, experts said. Chegg denies that characterization and said its users agree in its terms of service not to use the platform to cheat. It even cooperates with schools looking to find cheaters.
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As always, thank you for reading!
Alex and Kristina
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