Investigations

Washington, D.C.-area police departments deployed pepper spray nearly 300 times last year, according to an investigation by the News4 I-Team.  The use of the spray varies widely community-by-community and is frequently the source of complaints from citizens against law enforcement, the I-Team found. Nearly two-thirds of last year’s recorded pe...

In a budget hearing late Tuesday, D.C. Councilman Charles Allen vowed to find funding to restore and continue investing in the District’s Violence Interrupter program, which is facing a major cut in the currently proposed budget. “We’re going to change that because I don’t believe that we can handle fewer violence interrupte...

Plans for a new halfway house in D.C. are meeting growing resistance. The federal Bureau of Prisons said it made a deal with a contractor to make the site of the longtime DC Eagle nightclub in Ward 7 the District’s new transition home for released federal prisoners. It would house 300 men. But some community leaders here say it creates…...

Days after the D.C. Council voted on police reforms, the Montgomery County council will formally introduce its own proposal Tuesday. Police reform bills are surfacing nationwide in the wake of the death of George Floyd and the protests that have followed. The legislation in Montgomery County would require the police chief to issue a new policy for ...

When a group of federal judges from the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a ruling of qualified immunity for a group of officers this week, they did so in a remarkable fashion. The judges’ opinion, published Wednesday in Richmond, Virginia, ended with a paragraph about the current state of our nation when it comes to police shootings...

As governments across the country scramble to enact laws to reform policing, some of the key provisions include greater transparency surrounding officers’ actions and their disciplinary history. The D.C. Council voted Tuesday to expand access to body worn camera footage and strengthen the Office of Police Complaints but did not include a plan...

Nearly 3,000 men convicted of felonies in Washington, D.C., are under a prison lockdown order, and nearly 100 are serving their time in COVID-19 hot spots in the federal prison system, according to a review of D.C. and federal records by the News4 I-Team.     Without its own state prison, the District sends its citizens convicted of ...

District leaders are prepared to introduce several pieces of criminal justice reform Tuesday, including strengthening the ban on use of neck restraints. But the News4 I-Team found that is already one of lower-occurring types of use of force complaints within D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department. “We’ve been relatively satisfied w...

Congress will consider whether to give D.C.’s mayor more control of the D.C. National Guard. New legislation in the works could be formally debated as early this month. Nationwide, governors have the power to call up their state’s National Guard, but in the District, the president and the secretaries of the Army and Air Force do so. Before the......

The new temporary fences around the White House are not the first efforts to enhance security near the grounds, but they are a break from tradition in several ways. Investigations by News4’s Scott MacFarlane revealed several efforts to fortify the White House complex in 2015.

Health experts have warned about the possible risk of spreading COVID-19 during the protests across the nation. Some people arrested in D.C. during the unrest say they’re now planning to get tested because of little social distancing, no fresh air and, for some, no masks in custody. One of the people arrested shared his story with Scott MacFa...

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services now says at least 31,782 residents of our nation’s nursing homes have died from COVID-19. At least 95,515 residents have tested positive. The new information was revealed Thursday with the launch of an online data portal to share information with the public. “We were hearing from famil...

D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department and mayor are making sure to distinguish their local officers’ actions from the force federal police officers used against protesters Monday evening. Officers from the U.S. Secret Service and U.S. Park Police advanced on a crowd of protesters to clear the street in front of Lafayette Square. On Twit...