Monday, May 01, 2006

Student-Generated Data for Texas Taser Use by Police Online

This kind of experience might almost make going to journalism school in college seem worthwhile ... almost.

The
Distributed Reporting Project at the University of North Texas' Mayborn Institute has placed online pdf versions of the results of public information act requests by journalism students from four Texas universities - UT Arlington, TCU, Tarleton State, and UNT - to Texas police and Sheriff's departments regarding their use of Tasers and stun guns. See the results for your jurisdiction here. The article from Fort Worth Weekly referenced in this Grits post used data from these student researchers.

The project is collaborating with the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas, a nonprofit supported by many of the the state's daily newspapers. Students from UT Austin and SMU participated in the project during the Spring '06 semester, the website reports. I hope they were researching something cool.

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