By Abigail Rillo

Sheila Albers never imagined she would have to investigate her own son’s death. But after 17-year-old son, John Albers, was fatally shot by a police officer in the driveway of their family home in Overland Park, Kansas, she quickly realized that if she wanted answers, she would have to find them herself.

The night John was killed 2018, Sheila, her husband, Steve, and their two younger sons were not home. When they learned a shooting had occurred, they rushed to get information. Instead, they were met with resistance.

“Steve said, ‘shooting?’ And that was the first indication that we had that a shooting had happened,” Sheila said. Steve said to the officer, ‘Who shot my son? Why would someone shoot our son?’ And we got no answers.”

In the days that followed, the Albers family learned that John had been shot by a police officer as he backed the family minivan out of their driveway. The Johnson County (Kansas) Officer Involved Critical Incident Investigative Team (OICIIT) was deployed to investigate, but the family was still left in the dark.

“I didn’t understand why a police officer would shoot my son. So I was trying to gain an understanding of the circumstances that surrounded what occurred,” Sheila said.

Details, such as the Overland Park Kansas Police Officer officer’s name and trajectory reports, were withheld.

“My goal at the time was just to understand why any officer would feel the need to fire a weapon at my son. And they offered us nothing. You know, they wouldn’t give us the police officer’s name,” Sheila said. “They withhold all of that information. We ask ‘who was the officer? How many shots were fired? What happened?’ And they couldn’t answer any questions.”

The OICIIT team was created to provide an independent and impartial review of officer-involved shootings, but Sheila was wary of the process as she interacted more with them.

“It’s supposed to create an impartial, independent investigation, which that’s a sham. They’re still all buddies and they all cover for each other,” Sheila said.

As time passed, Sheila and her family felt more certain that information was being intentionally withheld.

“I guess I knew from the moment it happened that I wasn’t getting a straight story and that there was information that they were withholding from me and from my husband and from our entire community and family,” she said. “If we continue to allow false narratives to come out in police shootings, then we’ll never be able to minimize the loss of life.”

Not only was the Albers family denied key details, but the information shared with the public seemed cherry-picked and incomplete. Albers had asked for the crime lab reports from the Johnson County District Attorney, Steve Howe. Howe cited the Kansas Open Records Statute to deny the request noting that, under Kansas law, these records are considered criminal investigative records and are exempt from disclosure.

“They only released pieces of it to support the narrative they wanted to disseminate to the public,” Sheila said. “That day was horrific because not only did he clear the officer of any wrongdoing, they disseminated this narrative with significantly more missing pieces of evidence.”

A family friend eventually suggested Sheila file open records requests under the Kansas Open Records Act (KORA) to answer her questions.

“I’m like, ‘What the hell is KORA?’” Sheila said. “I wanted to know, ‘What were open records? Why are they so powerful? How could I use them?’”

Through this process, she learned how to request and utilize public records to tell a complete story.

“I think normal ordinary people like me underestimate their power to make change in government,” Sheila said. “I mean, it’s time-consuming to sit there and read through everything, but once you do and you know what you need to ask for and you get it, open records can be very powerful for people who aren’t reporters or who aren’t attorneys, like I did.”

One of her first discoveries was that law enforcement had misled the public about the employment status of the officer who shot John. As a former public school principal, Sheila knew salaries of public employees were a matter of record. When she requested employment history records, she found a discrepancy.

“Well, that contradicted what our chief of police told the media in an on-camera interview. And it turned out not to be true because what they were doing was negotiating a severance package for him,” Sheila said. “So we nailed the police chief in a lie over an open records request for something as simple as an employment history.”

But she didn’t stop there. She requested crime scene diagrams and the ballistics trajectory report from the Johnson County crime lab. What she found further contradicted the district attorney’s public narrative.

“It definitely gave us some closure because they produced a factual account of what occurred the night John was killed,” Sheila said. “And it did not match what the city or the DA put out.”

Through her records requests, Sheila ultimately uncovered that the OICIIT team had completed its investigation in less than two weeks—long before all evidence had been processed.

“They were all done in two weeks or less because they’re not interested in an impartial, thorough investigation,” she said. “They’re interested in clearing the officer of any misconduct and, you know, convince the community that everything’s okay and nothing bad has happened.”

In January 2024, the Kansas Office of the Disciplinary Administrator dismissed a complaint against Howe for releasing a false narrative but found it did have merit and issued a letter of caution. Police Officer Clayton

Jennison resigned his position, and in 2019, the city settled a lawsuit with me without admitting guilt.

It took years of litigation, open record requests, and a federal Department of Justice Civil Rights Investigation to correct the narrative of her son’s story.

Sheila’s pursuit of public records provided her family, and the Johnson County community, with the full truth about John’s death—truth they would not have received otherwise.

“The biggest thing I’ve learned about records, it is a brilliant way to hold local government accountable. You can say, well, you told me this, but the record I have contradicts what you’ve said,” Sheila said. “So, which is true? There’s a lot of power in being able to hold government accountable.”

By Sydney Sims

There are many interesting things one can find in a library besides books, according to Samantha “Sam” Satterly, whose passion is sustainable development.

Depending on what your local library holds in its repositories, you might just uncover a hazardous chemical dumping site at your local park, like she did.

After spending years working in radio, the Louisville, Kentucky, resident was looking for a career change.

“I took a course through the University of Florida in sustainable agriculture, and that led me down this path of, ‘okay, this is, this is where I’m supposed to be,’” she said. In January 2021, she began a master’s program at the University of Louisville in sustainability.

While working at the Bullitt County Public Library, Satterly became aware of the Gully of the Drums, a 23-acre toxic waste site near the community of Brooks. After her shift; she would sit and sift through documents in three-inch binders detailing the history of the site dating back to the 1960s.

“I was really, really intrigued,” Satterley said.

The site would become the focus of her master’s thesis, which led her to begin sending public records requests to the local county’s parks and recreation department. The situation was complicated, given her new employment with the Jefferson Memorial Forest.

“Probably about four months after I started working there, I was still digging through all these documents, and I came across a memorandum, and it talked about barrels that remained in a wooded area just outside of the Valley of the Drums,” Satterly said. “I couldn’t really find anything else in these binders that mentioned or referenced that. So that’s when I decided I’m going to start doing some FOIA requests.”

After five requests, Satterley came across evidence that the dumping site extended beyond just the valley, prompting her to approach her bosses.

“I was able to piece together that the gentleman who operated the Valley of the Drums actually started in the (Jefferson Memorial) forest,” she said. “He was in negotiations with our local government to create a municipal dump in that forest.”

Satterly also came across court documents that detailed a family that owned private property near the site sued and won a case against the local government for illegal dumping.

Armed with new facts, she says she used all this information to create a story map that she presented to the public in November 2023. The map was recently updated in January 2025.

” Against the requests of my supervisors, I contacted the state and sent them a copy of my thesis along with the story map that I created covering everything,” Satterly said. “That’s how I started to coordinate with people who could make a difference and would do something about it.”

The uncovering wasn’t met with benevolent and helpful resolve from her employer, according to Satterly. She left the job in 2024. Now, she intends to study environmental law.

“I walked away from local Metro Parks and Recreation, and I just told them our values were grossly misaligned,” she said. “I came and I affected change the only way I knew how, and I think I’m done here.”

By Sydney Sims

From an early age, Julia Roeder remembers being enamored with journalism.

“I used to wake up as a little kid at seven in the morning getting ready for school to watch the TODAY show,” Roeder said “I’ve always had such an awe for the courageous people in the press.”

By the time she was entering her freshman year of high school at Grosse PointeSouth in Michigan, she took a journalism class that would allow her to write for The Tower, the student-led, independent news publication. 

Roeder took a liking to the buzz of the newsroom pretty quickly. Now editor-in-chief, she also interned at the Detroit Free Press. 

It was in the high school newsroom that she first received a tip about then-school board Vice President Ahmed Ismail’s alleged efforts to push out two school administrators in the district. He later became board president.

The Tower adviser provided feedback as she filed 15 specific requests after getting a few denials. And that’s how she connected to the Student Press Law Center to help get the records she needed for her article. 

“I called the SPLC hotline,” she said. “I talked to some really great lawyers there, and they guided me through what the process would look like to appealing what language to use with that, and then the next steps after getting denied.”

Though she decided not to proceed with a lawsuit, Roeder – was able to obtain a two-page summary of the Board’s investigation,  It’s a small win for the work she says taught her the importance of holding people in place of power accountable.

Ismail “emphatically” denied the accusation that he attempted to oust administrators and has stepped down from the school board. 

“I’ve learned so much about the local government doing this beat that I actually feel very fortunate,” she said. “I’ve learned the importance of holding those in government accountable, whether that’s through reaching out to an elected official or FOIA-ing their work that they’re doing in their position.”

The Student Press Law Center and the Joseph L. Brechner Freedom of Information Project honored Roeder with the 2024 Student Freedom of Information Award.

By Sydney Sims

Doesn’t it seem a little strange to have a police oversight commission hosting public meetings behind closed doors in the police department they are expected to oversee?

Daniel Dunn thought so … even as a sitting member of said commission.

The goal of the Hamden (Connecticut) Police Commission, which Dunn – was appointed to by the local mayor, is to provide the citizens with the opportunity to oversee and hold the local police department to account. Dunn- always had an interest in the power of local government and its direct material effects.

After all, he had already been putting in freedom of information requests to various town government agencies for – things like financial data and employee salaries. 

“More recently, I became interested in police accountability and what the police are even doing locally so as a citizen, I was making FOIA requests in my town just for various things,” Dunn said.

As a commissioner, Dunn says it was a natural progression for him to continue that work to get a grasp on the current state of affairs including complaints he was hearing from citizens about the commission’s lack of insight. 

“It says in the town charter that the police commission shall hear civilian complaints, and historically, they hadn’t done that,” he said. “What is happening in our community regarding policing, what are these complaints? So, I made a request for all those records for a five-year period.”

He didn’t receive a law-abiding response. Instead, Dunn says the department sworn to uphold the law chose to break it. 

“When I did that, the police destroyed them,” he said. “Or at least the physical copies of them. I learned by accident, through the town attorney, that the police had requested those records to be destroyed while my FOIA request was pending and the mayor signed off on it.”

Dunn says once he realized that the department and city had gone to extreme lengths to conceal records that potentially showed abuse of power within the department, in 2022 he filed  a complaint with the Connecticut FOI Commission. He also hired an attorney to oversee the lawsuit. 

“We took it to the FOI Commission, and the town ended up settling and admitted to a technical violation, “he said. 

The smoking gun – the initial list of complaints Dunn says they used to stall his requests showed a mismatch of the records he actually received, proving that some of the records had been destroyed.

“It showed a mismatch…well, you said you had these and now you destroyed them,” he said. “Where is the ID of this complaint, right? They couldn’t match up on the one.”

Despite the settlement in 2024, which Dunn says resulted in a “victory without a victor”, the town admitted fault but paid no fines. The records still haven’t been recovered either. 

“The Commission ruled in our favor to force the town to release a couple of records, but we settled where the town would basically admit fault,” he said. “But there was no accountability. The records were destroyed, and no one was held accountable.”

Dunn’s next steps have been focused on creating a public database where the information he received will live in perpetuity. The incident also inspired him to attend law school at Quinnipiac University.

Dunn says he still has an epiphany for fostering access between average citizens and the government, a right he says many don’t realize is extremely important for their day-to-day lives. 

“A lot of people interact with their government all the time without knowing it,” he said. 

“A lot of people interact with their government without their consent. And knowing what the government is doing is extremely important because we’re all paying for that.”

The New England First Amendment Coalition awarded Dunn with the 2024 Antonia Orfield Citizenship Award. 

By Sydney Sims

You could call it journalistic intuition. However, Chelsea Curtis said it simply started as an observation.

A crime reporter by trade, Curtis noticed that there was no ongoing dedicated reporting on the Native American community in Arizona, or following crimes that happened from reservation to reservation and the implications that cycle plays on generations of families.

“Arizona has 22 federally recognized tribes, including the Navajo Nation, which is the largest in land size, but also population in the nation,” she said. “To me, it was just interesting that there wasn’t one designated reporter covering criminal justice issues. I just felt like there were so many people that were being affected, but rarely could, pinpoint a name, pinpoint a specific case, because they just weren’t getting coverage.”

In that gap of information, she saw an opportunity to highlight hidden stories that could help connect trend lines between missing and murdered Indigenous people. At the time, she was covering policing issues for The Arizona Republic, which sparked her interest to dive deeper into tribal communities.

Given her own heritage as a member of the Navajo Nation, Curtis believed she would be well suited to take on the project she first presented while interviewing for a job with the Arizona Luminaria.

“Arizona Luminaria was hiring for a general assignment reporter, and I applied for it,’ she said. “In the interview, I said this project is what I want to do. And they were like, we actually know somebody who can help with that.”

AZ Luminaria connected Curtis with Tara Gatewood at the International Women’s Media Foundation. Gatewood, who leads the organization’s Indigenous Fund, agreed to fund the small non-profit newsroom with a one-year grant so Curtis could create a statewide database focused specifically on missing and murdered Indigenous women, transgender women, and two-spirit people.

But, it hasn’t been a small feat.

Curtis has submitted over 100 public records requests to various law enforcement agencies at the federal, state, and local levels. Some have been fulfilled while she is still waiting to hear from others.

“Initially, I was requesting just a list of cases relating to Native Americans,” she said.  “From there, I started narrowing that down because records can be costly to just focus on women. So, I was requesting for all Native Americans, and then I was purchasing the actual reports for just women, but there were a lot of instances where I didn’t get responses.”

The lack of response Curtis is the biggest challenge in creating a database of this sort. And,  because indigenous tribes are federally recognized as sovereign nations, there are, oftentimes, discrepancies in laws among tribes.

Along with their own police forces and legal procedures, tribes often have their own open record laws – if they have any at all. Doubled with the culture of mistrust Curtis says many Indigenous communities harbor towards the American federal government, and many tribes have unique laws regarding who can gain access to information.

“They have that right to designate what their own laws are and who gets what information,” Curtis says. “I’m doing my best to navigate that in a way that’s sensitive to the tribal communities, but also trying to be an advocate, in a way, for free press and journalism so it’s a little complicated.”

A consortium of Indigenous and other journalism groups has issued a pledge to encourage tribal government officials to commit to transparency on behalf of their citizens and outline specific measures to reach this goal.

Another barrier is misidentification of ethnicity and gender in some of the cases, which Curtis says happens especially in the cases of transgender and two-spirit victims.

Two-spirited refers to a concept in native American culture where a person embodies both feminine and masculine spirits.

With what she has gathered, Curtis has been able to find trendlines and connections in unique cases that span tribes statewide, like intimate partner violence and substance abuse.

“At least initially, in the Missing and Murdered Indigenous People movement, there was this belief that a lot of Native American women were going missing or being murdered by Nonnatives,” she said. “The more the data is being uncovered, the more that we are learning that a lot of the women that are being impacted are by Indigenous men … a lot of times they are intimate partners. And, in many cases, these incidents stemmed from substance abuse like alcohol and drugs.”

Curtis and AZ Luminaria have, since, secured additional funding from the Data Liberation Project, to expand the current database, alongside profiles of the victims. The database has garnered a ton of positive attention from both the Indigenous communities and advocacy groups. “I just wanted to make it publicly accessible. I wanted to be out there comprehensive, people to know names,” she said. It was important to me to highlight that they are more than just numbers. They’re people.”

The immediate next steps are to continue working through the data, with hopes of extending research to missing and murdered Indigenous men.

But even in expansion, her mission will be the same: using data to advocate for more comprehensive coverage of the missing and murdered Indigenous people crisis.

“This database is just the beginning,” she said. “I want this project to serve as the foundation.”

By Savannah Rude

When George Floyd was murdered in Minneapolis by police officers in 2020, Alice Minium of Richmond, Virginia noticed there was a lack of local resources to hold police officers accountable and to educate the community. Minium has known about the Freedom of Information Act her whole life but didn’t start using it until she understood the need. 

“It’s always struck me as an odd law because laws usually, in my experience, make life a little worse,” Minium said. “They’re used to oppress me a little bit. But this law seems to uplift the citizens and hold power to account; it feels like an accident that it exists.”

It was then that OpenOversightVA, a free online database, was born. 

It was founded 2022 by Minium, who was in the middle of a lawsuit against the Richmond police at the time. The volunteer staff is comprised of half reporters and half live tweeters; the rest are  focused on ongoing lawsuits

The goal of OpenOversightVA is to have a roster of police officers in Virginia so that if someone felt mistreated by the police, they would have a resource to find public information related to the work of that specific officer. 

Minium said she didn’t know the Virginia Freedom of Information Act very well when she first started the database, whereas now she knows it inside and out.

“I’ve learned how to pressure powerful people just with hacking a situation,” Minium said. “Some of that’s knowing the law, and some of it’s just knowing people.”

OpenOversightVA has thousands of records to track ongoing lawsuits and incident reports involving officers. 

It took Minium figuring out the records-requesting process to get her to where she is now. 

“I knew a lot of reporters who knew more than me, and I knew some lawyers, but most of it was really just trial and error and being really stubborn and acting like I knew more than I did,” Minimum said. “Then, gradually, I developed a reputation, and people don’t want to mess with me quite as much anymore.”

Minium originally wanted to file all of her records requests anonymously, but Virginia’s freedom of information laws do not allow this. 

In Virginia, residency is required to submit a records request. The requester must identify themselves by name and might be required to provide the address listed on their driver’s license. 

When Minium started getting auto responses back, she figured out an effective system to handle them, she said. By organizing the responses into different groups and having an automatic response back depending on the group, it made the process much more efficient. 

“There’s a flow to sort of move it along, and I try to get ahead of the situation early on,” Minium said. “So, in my initial letter, I say my address, I say my name and I say the number resident,

and then I also get ahead of the cost estimate.” 

In Virginia, – the process can slow down substantially after a cost estimate for a records request is given. 

Minium has learned never to agree to a cost estimate and instead find another person to negotiate with. She said that the cost estimate will often be made up by someone whom she calls a “fall guy.” 

“I try really hard to connect myself with a decision maker, which is usually the county attorney, early on so that we can move the process along, and I’ll also try to get people on the phone early on to just sort of move through it,” Minium said. “A lot of times, once you’re able to connect with the human being and try to convince them you’re working together, then sometimes that will help.” 

Minium utilizes Google Workspace to track emails to inboxes and see if the email has been opened. She will then set up intervals of how often she reaches back out to the specific agency, whether it’s by phone or email. 

She takes the stance of being willing to go to court in the event of roadblocks or no response. 

In one situation, Minium took other methods of reaching out. 

“I looked up all the board members, and I emailed them all, and I was like, ‘I’m really concerned about what’s going on right now, and just like trying to email, like we want to avoid the costly process of embarrassing, you know, litigation.’” Minium said. “Sometimes, I’ll call the chief directly.” 

Anyone can utilize – freedom of information laws in their states, Minium said. 

“Don’t be afraid to ask for help. Don’t believe anybody who says it’s too complicated for you to understand because it’s not. And then don’t take no for an answer,” Minium said. “That is really what has gotten me success; it is just not going away. And you really learn that way. You learn a lot and just double down on what you know your rights are.”

She said she wishes everyone would try filing a public records request at least once. 

“Just try it, and don’t just accept what the government tells you as the default truth,” Minium said. “A lot of times, we have to do that in certain situations, but FOIA isn’t one of them.”

The Virginia Coalition for Open Government named Minium the 2024 recipient of its Laurence E. Richardson Citizen Award for Open Government.

By Jessica Sparks

Dean Pierce was a municipal planner in Shelburne, Vermont, for 20 years before he left his job because of what he calls an “unhealthy” work environment.

The picturesque 8,000-resident town sits on Lake Champlain. When the town manager left for a job in New Hampshire, Lee Krohn was appointed to the interim position. Krohn came into the position with 24 years of experience working in the town of Manchester, only 2 hours south of Shelburne. After serving as interim town manager for 7 months, Krohn was hired into the permanent position in December 2018.

After the leadership change, Pierce felt the workplace atmosphere move to something less friendly than he was used to. He resigned from his position in July 2021 after an extended medical leave.

“Things were not great when I left, but it was the healthy thing to do,” Pierce said. “I had things in the rearview mirror, but then I started reading about a young police chief going through the same things I was going through.”

That’s when Pierce decided to request a look at the Town Manager’s contract only to learn that it had been renewed early and in the renewal, the manager was required to take a human resources course.

On Dec. 24, 2021, Pierce requested documents related to complaints about the planning and zoning department, as well as complaints about the performance and behavior of the town manager. When those requests were denied, Pierce attended a meeting of the selectboard to appeal. It was at that meeting in February 2022 that tension between Pierce and the town manager came to a head. The town manager said Pierce was on a “fishing expedition” to ruin Krohn’s reputation and integrity. Krohn issued an apology after the meeting.

Meanwhile, the case of the police chief ended in a settlement between the town and the officer.

Ultimately, the Vermont Supreme Court sided with the town manager and the selectboard in their decision to deny the records. While Pierce received some of the documents he requested, his legal pursuit to keep the town manager accountable for his actions was faced with many roadblocks. That didn’t stop him from using what he had to make a difference.

“I got some documents,” Pierce said. “So when I heard the selectboard was reviewing the manager again, I sent them a note and said, ‘I read that you’re talking about personnel at the next meeting so here’s some information.’”

In July 2022, Krohn and the town came to an agreement to end ties. Pierce said the process to hire Krohn’s replacement was much more transparent than before.

“The process of hiring municipal managers in Vermont is a crucial decision but it varies,” Pierce said. “I like to think that I had an impact, but I don’t think everybody would have a favorable light… I feel like I had a positive impact on the community. I feel like my work is not done. That just it’s beginning.”

One thing Pierce learned through this process is that the price tag can be hefty. “It shouldn’t cost the price of a car,” he said.

In the future, Pierce said he would consider doing another case without the assistance of an attorney. “The lawyers have histories with the judges and they have other cases that go in those courts. I would not have held back. As a layperson, I think I would have said more.”

Pierce also said citizens shouldn’t always rely solely on the media to work on transparency missions. In this case, the former town manager regularly had photographs published in the town newspaper.

“It wasn’t getting covered because he was essentially on the staff,” Pierce said. “As a person who worked in municipal government, I felt benefitted most by the community access streaming of the meetings. Our community access station is called The Media Factory. I’ve gotten on the board of that because I truly believe in the transparency.”

By Jessica Sparks

When Osceola County, Florida, announced it would enforce a curfew and other mandates for public health during COVID-19, resident Josh Meyers was shocked to learn the resolution for such mandates were not done in the normal public meetings of the County Commission.

Instead, the county’s Executive Policy Group (EPG) enacted the ordinance, even to the point of signing off on it as an officially enforceable law- one that could result in a $500 fine and up to 60 days in jail if it were violated.

Meyers emailed his county commissioner Fred Hawkins to find out when and where the commission had voted on the ordinance. The commissioner responded that the Board of County Commissioners delegated authority to this group, and that the EPG voted to initiate the measures.

Meyers wanted to know more. He asked about where notices of the EPG meetings were posted and whether they were open to the public. When he asked the county’s attorney, he was told the meetings were not public, so notice to the public was not required. Later, through the help of an open records inquiry, Meyers learned the attorney had lied.

“Five minutes later he sent emails to Hawkins saying these meetings are public, but we don’t want the public to know about it,” Meyers said.