UNT student Jacob Taylor organizes records on Taser use.
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A D V E R T I S E M E N T
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A D V E R T I S E M E N T
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Tracking the Taser Story
To examine how Tasers and other “non-lethal” weapons are being used by law enforcement official in Texas, journalism students around the state requested records on weapons use and prisoner deaths from hundreds of Texas law enforcement agencies.
This article, which was sponsored by the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas’ Light of Day Project, the Mayborn Graduate Institute of Journalism’s Distributed Reporting Project, and Fort Worth Weekly, is based on interviews and thousands of pages of records obtained by students under the Texas Public Information Act, under the director of Weekly staffer and Mayborn instructor Dan Malone and Weekly editor Gayle Reaves.
Many of the records obtained by students can be reviewed at the Mayborn’s web site at http://mayborninstitute.unt.edu/academics/dist_rep.htm. Other news organizations are encouraged to make use of those records as long as they credit the students’ reporting. To learn more about the FOIFT’s Light of Day Project visit www.lightofdayproject.org.
Students who contributed to this report include Mayborn graduate students Joel Brillant, Byrdie Franco, Reyna Gobel, Don Jones, Komla Hans Masro, Katy McDaniel, Trevor Naughton, Nicole Osei, Britney Porter, Jacob Taylor, and Rashaun Trammell; University of North Texas journalism students Crystal Adams, Crystal Barbour, Mason Canales, Sarah Eibel, Noor Elashi, Christopher Ferguson, Amy Fowler, Justin Garison, Latricia Harjes, Jessica Johnson, Rian Johnson, Imelda McClure, Brad McDonald, Michelle Mashburn, Brandon Musselman, Claudia Nwaogu, James O’Brien, Melissa Procell, Amanda Quinlan, Fatima Quiroz, Clarisa Ramirez, Rachel Routon, Sarah Seeley, Aakriti Tandon, Samuel Taylor, Erin Tritschler, Emily White, Sloan White, Lindsay Wilps, and Rebekah Wolf. Joanna Cattanach, a student in Baylor University’s Masters of International Journalism program and intern at the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas, and Beth Wreford, a Texas Christian University student interning at Fort Worth Weekly, also contributed to this report.
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