Jessica Lussenhop

A car wreck found at the bottom of Lake Sakakawea in North Dakota brought the search for a missing young mother, Olivia Lone Bear, to an end. But the discovery was made not by the police, but a mostly-female volunteer team of indigenous sleuths and activists led by Lissa Yellowbird-Chase.

Seven of the eight members of Baltimore’s Gun Trace Task Force started robbing criminals of money, guns and drugs and violating citizens’ constitutional rights. Until they got caught.

After a forty-year career in broadcast news, Bill Proctor has spent his retirement investigating a brutal murder from two decades ago.

More than 100 police officers from 18 different agencies accessed the driver’s license records of Rasmusson, a former officer. She’s now suing for invasion of privacy:

“Rasmusson’s lawsuit, which will be filed in the coming weeks, alleges that not only was her privacy compromised, but that her story is merely a symptom of a larger culture of data abuse by police. Her attorneys charge that while police are trained to use the driver’s license database for official purposes only, in reality it’s more like a Facebook for cops.

“The agencies involved have maintained that this is an isolated incident. But one officer, who would not use his name for fear of further discipline, says that the practice is commonplace.

“‘I get Anne’s side of it,’ he says. ‘But every single cop in the state has done this. Chiefs on down.'”

Ruettimann had visited Hereaux at a time when he knew his friend would be alone. In the modest but cozy living room, Ruettimann handed Hereaux a heavy brown accordion file. He wrote a name down on a scrap of paper, the name of a local journalist.

“If anything happens to me,” Ruettimann said, “give this to the reporter.”

After Ruettimann’s death, Hereaux took the file down off his desk. Inside was a thick stack of loose-leaf documents, a manila folder stuffed with letters, and a catalog-size clasp envelope labeled “Reports.”

Written in black permanent marker in the margin of the envelope was the reporter’s name: mine.

Then came the question from hell out of Louisiana: “What are the qualities of a good leader?” One student wrote, “Martin Luther King Jr. was a good leader.” With artfulness far beyond the student’s age, the essay delved into King’s history with the civil rights movement, pointing out the key moments that had shown his leadership. There was just one problem: It didn’t fit the rubric. The rubric liked a longer essay, with multiple sentences lauding key qualities of leadership such as “honesty” and “inspires people.” This essay was incredibly concise, but got its point across. Nevertheless, the rubric said it was a 2. Puthoff knew it was a 2.

With no monitor, the original version of Oregon Trail was played by answering prompts that printed out on a roll of paper. At 10 characters per second, the teletype spat out, “How much do you want to spend on your oxen team?” or, “Do you want to eat (1) poorly (2) moderately or (3) well?” Students typed in the numerical responses, then the program chugged through a few basic formulas and spat out the next prompt along with a status update. “Bad illness—medicine used,” it might say. “Do you want to (1) hunt or (2) continue?”