Stories

Mark Schand scoops ice cream at his Sweetwater smoothie cafe in New Britain, Connecticut. Photo by Karen Brown for NEPR

Exoneree Runs Smoothie Chain, Making Up For 27 Years Of Lost Entrepreneurship

January 30, 2019

From his prison cot, for 27 years, Mark Schand plotted out a retail empire he’d been envisioning since well before his arrest.

Read More
An exoneree comes in for landing. Photo by Bruce Gellerman for WBUR

In New England, These Exonerated Prisoners Take A Leap Of Faith

November 26, 2018

On Memorial Day, Darrell Jones was standing with a group of men who hardly knew each, but who share an unenviable life experience as former prisoners.

Read More
Boston Police Headquarters. Photo by Joe Difazio for WBUR

ACLU Sues Boston Police For Access To Gang Database

November 15, 2018

The ACLU of Massachusetts wants access to the Boston Police Department’s gang database and it’s suing the department to get it.

Read More
Andrew Butler, who needed psychiatric care, was transferred from a hospital to a prison last year in New Hampshire. Photo by Wyatt Farwell. Photo courtesy of Doug Butler

Sent To A Hospital, But Locked In Prison

August 6, 2018

National advocacy groups say New Hampshire is the only place in the country where the ward for people at risk of hurting themselves or others, called a secure psychiatric unit, is located in a prison.

Read More
Guns for sale in Millbury, Massachusetts. Sean/CreativeCommons/Flickr

Feds: Pot And Guns Don’t Mix

July 10, 2018

In late June, a gun store in Charlemont, Massachusetts, posted a letter on Facebook from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. The 2011 letter notified gun dealers that just because someone has a state medical marijuana card, it doesn’t mean it’s legal for them to purchase a gun.

Read More
Josh Koskoff, a lawyer representing the families of Sandy Hook shooting victims, appeared at the Connecticut Supreme Court in November 2017. Photo by Patrick Skahill for WNPR

Sandy Hook Families Push To Hold Gun Maker Accountable In Court

May 14, 2018

The Connecticut Supreme Court is likely to decide this week whether to allow 10 families of victims in the 2012 Newtown school shooting to sue Remington, the company that manufactured the assault-style rifle used in the massacre.

 

Read More
The Vermont Supreme Court overturned the conviction of a man who left KKK recruitment flyers at the Burlington homes of two women of color. The court said the state failed to prove the action constituted an immediate threat. Photo by John Dillon for VPR

Free Speech Or A Threat? Vermont Supreme Court Decision Highlights Continuing Tension

May 11, 2018

Last week, the court overturned the conviction of a man who put Ku Klux Klan flyers on the Burlington homes of two women of color. The court said the state didn’t prove the action met the threshold of ‘threatening behavior.’

 

Read More
A customer loads a case of Hennessey cognac into his vehicle. Photo by Todd Bookman for NHPR

N.H. Officials Unaware of Stakeouts and Bootlegging Stings at State-Run Liquor Stores

May 3, 2018

Around noon of November 9th of last year, a Black Chevy Suburban pulled up to a New Hampshire liquor store. The driver, a 46-year old Queens, New York resident named Juncheng Chen, bought some booze, then headed off to another liquor store to make another purchase. Then another, then another.

Read More
The body of Somerset County Sheriff's Deputy Eugene Cole is brought out and loaded into a medical examiner's van on Wednesday, April 25, 2018. Photo by Kevin Bennet for Maine Public

Corporal Eugene Cole Was Dedicated To De-Escalation Above Deadly Force

May 3, 2018

Somerset County Corporal Eugene Cole was trained in de-escalation tactics, and he’d used them successfully during a police standoff two years ago. Cole considered deadly force a last resort, but it was a tool he recognized police needed to have. Cpl. Eugene Cole was shot and killed on April 25. The suspect, John Williams, was caught after a four-day manhunt.

Read More
Arlington Police Chief Fred Ryan, right, and inspector Gina Bassett review toxicology reports on cocaine evidence, looking for the possibility of fentanyl. "Law enforcement tells us that the next wave of the addiction crisis is fentanyl-laced cocaine," Ryan says. Photo by Jesse Costa for WBUR

Fentanyl-Laced Cocaine Could Be ‘Next Wave’ Of Opioid Crisis, Some Warn

March 27, 2018

A pipe was the only sign of drug use near Chris Bennett’s body, in November. But it looked like the 32-year-old Taunton native had stopped breathing and died of an opioid overdose. Bennett’s mother Liisa couldn’t understand what happened. Then she saw the toxicology report.

Read More