Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

All-formats coverage of Alabama mall shooting and victim of police

for all-formats coverage of a Thanksgiving night mall shooting in Alabama, including the first interview with the father of a young man killed by police, who initially identified the 21-year-old as the shooter but later admitted he did not pull the trigger. Montgomery statehouse reporter Chandler provided strong all-formats coverage over the holiday weekend – including photos and video of protests against the police killing of the misidentified black man.https://bit.ly/2Sl619Vhttps://bit.ly/2KJ4UOW

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Iowa promised $75 million for school safety. Two shootings later, the money is largely unspent

After an Iowa school shooting left two people dead, AP made a records request to find out how much of $75 million dedicated to school security actually went toward that purpose and produced an AP exclusive that showed much of the money has not been spent.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Brussels bureau’s teamwork leads to aggressive reporting in Belgian attack

AP delivered aggressive, dominating performance on one of the biggest breaking stories of the week when a gunman picked three Swedes traveling to a soccer game in Belgium and fatally shot them with an AR-15 rifle in downtown Brussels.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

The aftermath of mass shootings infiltrates every corner of survivors’ lives 

was part of a team of reporters reaching out to family members of the mass killing during the Fourth of July parade in Highland Park, Illinois, she embarked on a different kind of mass shooting story, that of the shooting survivors, which is always an overlooked aspect of gun violence.Read more.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Capturing the confusion around the notion of a 6-year-old shooting his teacher

knew the story of a 6-year-old Virginia boy who shot his teacher in class was something very different, even in a country accustomed to school shootings. The Concord, New Hampshire, reporter decided to capture the confusion and hand-wringing around the notion of someone so young being the shooter.Read more.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Fast response, sensitive coverage put AP ahead on shooting by deputy

responded quickly in all formats after a Black man in rural eastern North Carolina was shot and killed by deputies, the team deftly leading multiple news cycles by staying ahead on spot developments while telling the story of the man’s life. The quick coverage was key as authorities released few details.Hours after Andrew Brown Jr. was killed by deputies serving a warrant, AP was on the ground in Elizabeth City with text, photo and video staff, gathering a key eyewitness account and protester reaction while also interviewing family members.The following day, AP delivered a sensitive account that captured the complexity of Brown’s life, with family describing him as a proud father with a beaming smile. That story, along with the first day story, captured front pages around North Carolina and beyond. AP continued to lead with detail and context in subsequent cycles, drawing credit from other news outlets.The FBI has since launched a civil rights probe into Brown’s killing.https://bit.ly/3xtUL0Ehttps://bit.ly/3gHWv08https://bit.ly/3vobAIhhttps://bit.ly/3eECapO

Best of the Week — First Winner

AP photographer wounded, keeps shooting as politician fires gun during protest

Today’s Best of the Week winner is the latest reminder that AP’s photo staff is among the greatest and most committed in the world.

Port-au-Prince photographer Dieu-Nalio Chery was prepared to cover a contentious debate at Haiti’s parliament about whether to confirm a new prime minister when, in a chaotic scene outside the session, protesters confronted pro-government Sen. Ralph Fethiere and tried to pull him from his car. The lawmaker reached for his gun and began firing into the air and ground.

At least one bullet splintered into shards that lodged just beneath Chery’s chin. Despite his wound, Chery kept taking extraordinary photos of Fethiere firing his gun, so close that he captured spent cartridges flying through the air. 

Chery’s photos received heavy play, and he is expected to recover after surgery to remove the bullet fragment.

For displaying remarkable dedication and courage in a volatile situation, and for capturing an extraordinary image of the man who wounded him, Chery is recognized with AP’s Best of the Week award.

Best of the States

AP Exclusive: California synagogue hadn’t used security funds received shortly before shooting

After a gunman opened fire in a Southern California synagogue on Passover, killing a woman and wounding a man, his 8-year-old niece and the rabbi leading the service, the inevitable question was asked: Could anything have been done to stop the violence?

Reporters Don Thompson and Adam Beam in Sacramento and Julie Watson in San Diego combined to report exclusively that the synagogue itself had recognized security deficiencies and even received a state grant to address them.

But it hadn’t spent the money, the AP team revealed.

For their exclusive follow-up to a crime that generated global attention, Thompson, Watson and Beam win this week’s Best of the States.

Best of the States

A powerful retrospective and breaking news, 20 years after Columbine mass shooting

Twenty years have passed since the Columbine high school massacre, which was, to many people, the beginning of school shootings as we know them. In those years, life has changed: Mass shootings happen again and again, schoolchildren participate in lockdowns instead of fire drills, and many reflect on the moment in time when two young men took 13 lives with them on their suicidal quest.

AP was uniquely positioned to cover the two decades since the massacre, with journalists who were there, those who cover the Colorado community every day, and experts in polling, education and guns. Stories by Denver reporter Kathleen Foody and videojournalist Peter Banda led a deep all-formats package by dozens of journalists across the AP telling not just of the carnage but of those who survived it, their struggle, and the future.

But all the planning couldn't prepare anyone for this spot development: Early in the week, Sol Pais, a young Florida woman, prompted panic over a possible attack at Columbine, later taking her own life near the Colorado school. Miami reporter Kelli Kennedy tracked down a good friend of Pais who not only filled in personal details about her in an exclusive interview, but supplied photos of Pais and cast doubt on the official narrative about her friend.

The overarching theme of the spot and enterprise coverage focused on the short and long-term mental health issues from school shootings. The result was a unique, meaningful package that received impressive play nationally – online and in print. The video was among the top-used AP videos of the week.

For their work spearheading the package, and breaking news, Foody, Banda and Kennedy win this week’s Best of the States.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

FBI can’t identify motive in worst mass shooting in modern US history

for months of relentless source development that paid off with a clean beat when he was first with the news that the FBI’s final report on the worst shooting in modern U.S. history could not identify the gunman’s motive.https://bit.ly/2GuSnhZ

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP report prompts Israeli military to investigate shooting death of Palestinian paraplegic

for persistence in obtaining medical records that showed a paraplegic man who died during clashes with Israeli forces was killed by a bullet that struck him in the head. The army, which initially dismissed the shooting, launched an investigation following Akram’s story. http://bit.ly/2qnpFco

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

In year of 3,000 shootings, a teen faces life beyond bullet

for an all-formats package looking at Chicago’s gun violence from the perspective of a resilient 18-year-old who was paralyzed after an apparent mistaken-identity shooting. http://abcn.ws/2ezQqjT

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Searching records, interviewing relatives, AP traces poor driving history after two-bus fatal crash

for showing that the driver of a school bus that crashed into a commuter bus in Baltimore had a history of legal trouble and a spotty driving record. http://apne.ws/2fyeRxI

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

NYPD installed bullet-resistant glass, but not in fatal command vehicle

for reporting exclusively that the New York Police Department had installed bullet-resistant glass in patrol cars, but not in mobile command vehicles like the one in which an officer was shot to death. http://bit.ly/2tkTDtD

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Florida had urged key design change of bridge ahead of fatal collapse

for showing that Florida’s transportation agency had ordered key design changes to a pedestrian bridge that later collapsed and killed six people. https://hrld.us/2J7uGLJ

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP reveals details of shooting by Oklahoma police that wounded 3 children

for dogged reporting on the physical and emotional struggles of three children wounded when police officers opened fire on their mother’s pickup truck. Authorities had largely avoided releasing information for nearly a month after the incident, but using Oklahoma open records law, and interviews with police, lawyers and the children’s mother, the team was first to reveal details of the investigation into the shooting, and the long recovery ahead for the children. https://bit.ly/2Wmwvyx

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

After newspaper tragedy, a city embraces its journalists

for a nuanced story of a community coming together to support their local newspaper, the Capital Gazette in Annapolis, Maryland, in the year since a mass shooting killed five people at the paper. The paper’s surviving staff are recommitted to covering the community, using their craft to work through their trauma, while subscriptions have surged and random readers hug reporters on the job, Witte reported. https://bit.ly/2RPdkrw

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP: DEA appeared to intervene after off-duty shooting by agent

investigated a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent’s deadly shooting of a mentally ill neighbor in Mississippi, revealing new details that raise questions about why the agent never faced trial on a murder charge — and the role played by DEA brass to quickly insert themselves into the case, blocking local authorities from talking to the agent.Mustian exclusively obtained hundreds of pages of investigative documents and transcripts, and spent days on the ground interviewing people with knowledge of the case for a story that questions the justification for the shooting, how Agent Harold Duane Poole avoided trial and whether the DEA overreached to protect one of its own amid a flurry of misconduct cases in the agency.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Standout coverage of mass shooting at rural Thailand day care center

coordinated with a cast of colleagues from Southeast Asia to Australia to London, delivering coverage impressive for its speed and scope after Thailand’s deadliest mass shooting — 36 people dead, most of them children, at a day care center in one of the county’s most remote areas. The ex-police officer responsible also killed his wife and child, and then killed himself.Read more

Best of the Week — First Winner

Follow-up reporting after Texas mass shooting reveals long-standing complaints about police response

When a Texas sheriff’s story about a mass shooting didn’t add up, Dallas-based reporter Jake Bleiberg dug in.  

During the four-day search for a man accused of fatally shooting five of his neighbors in April, San Jacinto County Sheriff Greg Capers told a crush of reporters that his deputies got to the scene in 11 minutes, but the suspect had vanished. Bleiberg was among the Texas reporters covering the shooting who heard from area residents that deputies rarely responded to calls faster than 30 minutes. As he worked the phone to get a fuller picture, Bleiberg connected with a source who provided him with the report of a police consultant who county officials hired to examine the sheriff’s office. Bleiberg quickly authenticated the document and headed down to the rural corner of East Texas to continue reporting along with video journalist Lekan Oyekanmi and freelance photographer Michael Wyke.  

They conducted more than 20 interviews with current and former deputies, county officials and residents. Bleiberg successfully pressed for the release of public records related to the shooting and obtained revealing court documents and evidence gathered in a whistleblower lawsuit against the sheriff. The reporting revealed that the latest inaccuracies were part of years’ worth of accusations against the sheriff, including neglecting basic police work, evidence of the improper seizure of tens of thousands of dollars of property, ignoring previous concerns over the alleged shooter, and his deputies failing to follow up on reports of 4,000 crimes — including sexual and child abuse.  

For a tireless effort to reveal years of corruption accusations and dysfunction previously unknown outside of the local area, Jake Bleiberg earns Best of the Week — First Winner.