I’m building a database of alleged and confirmed acts of misconduct by Massachusetts police officers that are reported by the news media. Currently, the project only covers stories reported in 2022. You can view the 2022 database here.
Criteria
The database will track the following types of stories:
- Stories about police officers who are facing criminal charges
- Stories about police officers or police departments that are facing lawsuits; this includes not just lawsuits that are filed by the public against the police, but also lawsuits filed by police officers against their employers for wrongful termination, retaliation, etc.
- Stories about police officers who are facing formal complaints/internal affairs investigations
- Stories about independent investigations (e.g., investigations by the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office or the federal Department of Justice) that find evidence of police misconduct
- Stories about judicial rulings that reveal police misconduct — e.g., a ruling to suppress evidence due to an illegal search or seizure by police
- Stories about public allegations by victims or witnesses of alleged police misconduct
To be added to the database, a story must have been first reported by the news media in 2022, although it does not need to have occurred in 2022. It can be a new story (i.e. one that had never been reported until 2022) or a significant update to an older story (e.g., a previously reported lawsuit being settled, criminal charges being filed in a previously reported incident, etc).
If you happen to see a relevant story, please contact me to let me know about it. The stories that I’m most concerned about missing are ones that are only reported by a single media outlet, especially a small local newspaper — obviously I can’t read every paper in the state on a daily basis. I do intend to periodically use keyword searches on news sites and Google to look for stories that I might have missed, but if people send me stories soon after they are published, it would make things much easier for me. When possible, I use non-paywalled stories.