Investigations

The force Park Police officers have used against protesters could cost the agency its working relationship with some local police departments. In a statement to News4, Metropolitan Washington’s Council of Governments confirms it is now planning to review the regional mutual aid agreement which governs those relationships. “Mutual aid am...

While Virginia has finally released the names of all nursing homes and assisted living facilities that have had COVID-19 outbreaks, the News4 I-Team found the state is still withholding the number of cases and deaths in many of those locations.  Gov. Ralph Northam touted his decision to release the information late Friday after families and le...

Two former state legislators who pleaded guilty to bribery charges have secured early release from federal prison amid the COVID-19 crisis. Federal Bureau of Prisons records reviewed by the News4 I-Team show former Prince George’s County state Del. Will Campos has been transferred to a halfway house more than a year before his projected release dat...

There are reports of growing unrest among inmates inside a local prison amid a rising number of COVID-19 cases. Inmates have started a series of small fires and thrown trash and human waste around inside a housing unit at the Jessup Correctional Institution in Maryland, according to a review by the News4 I-Team.   Relatives of inmates inside o...

As D.C., Maryland and Virginia continue through the phases of reopening, one key element to help make us safer is contact tracing. Each health department is hiring hundreds of people and training them to do the job. Is it right for you? More than 400,000 people have already signed up for a free online course offered by Johns Hopkins University&#823...

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...