* City Bureau…

We are incredibly proud to share that City Bureau Senior Reporter Sarah Conway and Invisible Institute Data Director Trina Reynolds-Tyler have won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting for their investigation “Missing in Chicago.”

“Missing in Chicago” is a seven-part investigative series that reveals how Chicago police have routinely violated state law and police procedure, delaying and mishandling missing person cases. The report revealed a racial bias that disproportionately impacts Black women and girls, and how poor police data is making the problem harder to solve.

“Sarah and Trina deserve this recognition for many reasons. The rigor, care and thoughtfulness that they put into this investigation shine through within each piece, and I couldn’t be more proud of their commitment,” said City Bureau Executive Director Morgan Malone. “‘Missing in Chicago’ serves as proof that investigative reporting with engagement and community in mind are a necessity, versus a ‘nice to have.’

“When our reporting is informed by the lived experiences and needs of community, the potential for impact is boundless. I look forward to the change brewing in Chicago and Illinois, due in large part to their incredible reporting, and in the journalism industry at large, as this Pulitzer is proof that investigative journalism driven by community is alive, well and a catalyst for the world we know to be possible.”

* Here’s an excerpt of the seven part series…

While police officials have publicly claimed that services for families are equal and fair across race and ZIP codes, massive gaps in missing persons data make it impossible to prove, according to a two-year investigation by City Bureau and the Invisible Institute. Instead, interviews with current and former police officers, national experts and researchers, along with dozens of anecdotes from impacted family members, reveal a pattern of neglect, incompetence and illegal behavior from police officers in missing person cases:

-Under Illinois law and Chicago police policy, police officers cannot deny a missing person report for any reason. However, reporters found dozens of people who say they were told to wait, or outright denied the ability to file a report — delaying investigations during the critical early hours of missingness. Read more.

-Families of the missing say that police officers are dismissive of their cases, neglect their investigations and stigmatize their loved ones — including multiple cases where police declined to investigate key leads or lost evidence, leaving families to conduct their own searches. Read more.

- Analyzing police data on missing person cases from 2000 to 2021, reporters found discrepancies that call into question the department’s data-keeping practices. Current and former police officers say that the missing person report is one of the last remaining paper reports used by Chicago police. Police records also show that, from 2017 to 2021, a little over 45% of cases are missing a key data point about the time and date police arrived to investigate these cases. And reporters identified multiple cases that ended in homicide that were marked “non-criminal” in the data — as well as four cases where detectives explicitly noted that the missing person had returned home, despite family members saying their loved ones never returned home alive. Read more. […]

For this investigation, City Bureau and the Invisible Institute requested the Chicago Police Department’s missing person reports from 2000 to 2021, analyzed them and interviewed more than 40 sources. Police missing persons data was cross referenced with underlying investigative documents, Chicago Police Department homicide data, medical examiner death data and news reports.

The analysis shows that of the approximately 340,000 cases in this time period, Black children make up 57% of cases. Black girls between the ages of 10 and 20 make up nearly one-third of all missing person cases in the city, according to police data, despite comprising only 2% of the city population as of 2020. This racial disparity has remained relatively constant over the past two decades, even as cases overall have fallen. (Since 2000, missing person cases have fallen by about 50% and experts are unsure why.)

Hispanic people make up 15% of all cases, but experts believe this figure is underreported due to immigration enforcement concerns.

* Here’s another heartbreaking excerpt…

Shirley Enoch-Hill believes she will never find out what happened to her daughter, Sonya Rouse, who dreamed of being a news anchor. When Rouse went missing in 2016 at age 50, Enoch-Hill immediately suspected Rouse’s boyfriend, whom she claims physically abused her daughter throughout their relationship. According to police documents, an Illinois Department of Corrections official offered to arrange an interview between police Detective Brian Yaverski and the boyfriend (who was in an IDOC work release program), but Yaverski “decided to wait.” More than a year later, the boyfriend died of a suspected fentanyl overdose, and Yaverski never interviewed him. (Reporters contacted Yaverski for comment but he did not respond. CPD media affairs also did not respond to a request for comment.)

Enoch-Hill remembers crying when she heard Rouse’s boyfriend had died, because she felt the truth of what happened to her daughter was gone forever. “There is no closure. … It was like she disappeared off the face of the earth,” she says. “If you’re Black and you come up missing, nobody cares.” […]

Teresa Smith had a similar experience after her 65-year-old mother Daisy Hayes went missing May 1, 2018. Hayes was a loving and caring grandmother who was always the life of the party, Smith says. Yet when Smith tried to ask police for help, “They assassinated her character. [They said,] ‘We know your mom frequents the liquor store,’” Smith recounts. “Like that has something to do with anything?”

Similarly, City Bureau and the Invisible Institute found 11 other Black women who accused officers of abusive and dismissive language in an analysis of 54 police misconduct complaint records from 2011 to 2015 where the complaint was related to a missing person case. […]

Rather than receiving help from officers, Smith says she was yelled at by them, even though according to a police report Hayes’ boyfriend was seen entering her apartment empty-handed and later caught on surveillance footage dragging a heavy suitcase down to the parking lot dumpster, then covering it with trash.

Go read the rest.

* More…

* Tribune | Two Chicago nonprofit news startups win Pulitzer Prizes: “They found that across the city, this is a consistent issue, that the cases, depending on your ZIP code, determines how much effort they put into finding you, as well as how much your family is allowed access to be a part of the investigation,” said Morgan Malone, who joined City Bureau this year as its first executive director.

* City Bureau, Invisible Institute Win Pulitzer For Coverage Of Missing Black Women In Chicago: Reynolds-Tyler was thrilled to hear the news, she said Monday afternoon. “As a little Black girl from the South Side of Chicago this is … I just feel very honored. I’m so grateful for the opportunity for us to model investigative data journalism, really excited that we are able to do this in the third largest metropolitan city in the country. The level of intention and care that can come to journalism can be healing, it can be heavy, it can set a record. And this work embodies truth, the truth of law enforcement. It’s the truth of families. It’s the truth of advocates,” said Reynolds-Tyler, a trained restorative justice practitioner.

* Poynter | Small newsrooms won big in the 2024 Pulitzers: Conway said she was proud of their work, and proud of the families who took a chance on speaking with them for the investigation. “We took a lot of pride and diligence in moving with a lot of care, in sourcing and research, and connecting with people who’ve been impacted over the past few years,” Conway said. “The recognition is something I hope lends credence to their experiences and their stories, and what they’ve gone through — who their loved ones were. Because we found, in our reporting, a lot of people had been harmed and neglected by the city and, in particular, the Chicago Police Department, at a really painful moment in their life.”

* NYT | How a Tiny Chicago News Organization Won 2 Pulitzers: Mr. Lacour’s podcast won one of two Pulitzers this year for the Invisible Institute, a small, crusading newsroom on Chicago’s South Side known for holding city authorities to account. The other prize, for local reporting, went to the organization’s data director, Trina Reynolds-Tyler, who reported an investigative series on missing Black girls and women in Chicago.

* Crain’s | MLK biographer Eig and City Bureau, Invisible Institute rack up Pulitzers: City Bureau Executive Director Morgan Malone praised the reporting in a statement accompanying the award announcement. “‘Missing in Chicago’ serves as proof that investigative reporting with engagement and community in mind are a necessity, versus a ‘nice to have,’” Malone wrote.