By Vicky Gits

“For all the advances police and prosecutors have made in their ability to solve crimes, they still struggle with the basic step of making sure that the people they arrest show up to answer the charges.”

–Brad Heath, USA Today, “Fugitives Next Door” http://www.fugitves.usatoday.com

A newspaper story about a fugitive from justice who escaped one arrest and detention and went on to kill a cop in New York City, sparked USA Today investigative reporter Brad Heath’s curiosity.

That curiosity grew into a massive two-year investigation of how thousands of criminals are escaping the consequences by simply moving across county lines. The investigation turned into a series of stories, “Fugitives Next Door,” that relied in large part on Heath’s talent for computer assisted reporting.

The stories documented how arrest warrants “pile up by the thousands,” for minor offenses as well as crimes such as assault, rape and murder, and that “authorities are not searching for them beyond the county line.”

“In three states alone, confidential law enforcement databases list nearly a million fugitives who need not fear being arrested if they’re found beyond the next county, let alone the next state,” the report said. Certain databases, but not all, actually stipulate how far police are willing to travel to pick up individuals with outstanding warrants, even if they have been identified in connection with other offenses.

For these stories, the USA Today investigative reporter was named the winner of the 2015 Al Nakkula Award for police reporting. The Nakkula Award, named for the former Rocky Mountain News police reporter, is a $2,000 prize sponsored by the Denver Press Club and the University of Colorado College of Media, Communication and Information.

Heath is the first Nakkula award winner to make extensive use of computer-assisted reporting, said John Ensslin, county government and politics reporter at The Record, Woodland Park, N.J.

Ensslin interviewed Heath on April 23 at the Denver Press Club when Heath was in Denver to receive the award at the annual Damon Runyan Award Banquet. Ensslin is a former president of the Colorado Pro Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists and former SPJ national president.

The interview, sponsored by SPJ Colorado Pro, was videotaped and will be broadcast on Denver’s Channel 8 in May.

Ensslin is a former staff writer for the Rocky Mountain News who recalls working at the Rocky when Nakkula was still on the staff.

Nakkula was known for daring to expose a crime ring that existed inside the Denver Police department. In addition to that he was the “spark plug who woke up the entire newspaper,” Ensslin said. “The staff adored him.” After he died, his friends got together to memorialize him with the annual police reporting award.

Heath follows in Nakkula’s tradition but with a tech twist. He discovered that neglecting to follow up on arrest warrants was a fairly common practice. “All a criminal has to do is go away. The authorities decide we are just not going to get you,” Heath said.

The lack of police follow-up is common knowledge among the criminal population, Heath said. Departments just don’t have the resources to track down every lawbreaker and go through a legal extradition, even if identification is not an issue. Extradition can get very expensive if someone wants to fight it and the authorities are scared of it, Heath said.

Heath’s main challenge was extracting records from local sheriff’s departments and other authorities. In some cases, he had to use computer-coding skills to create “bots” that would go through databases electronically and produce reports.

He also called sheriff’s offices and submitted Freedom of Information Act requests to the FBI. He gave Florida high marks for transparency. “You get whatever you want and they are fast.”

Heath got satisfaction out of mining databases and “knowing things I’m not supposed to know.”

In some places the series is producing results. Shocked by the extent of the problem, the leader of the National District Attorneys Association has said prosecutors need to “go back and audit all of their outstanding warrants.” (March 14, 2015)

Heath has been at USA Today as an investigative reporter for nine years, covering mostly law and criminal justice. Known for aspiring to explore “the big picture,” USA Today has made a large commitment to investigations and has two teams of five reporters each, Heath said.

Heath started his journalism career at a newspaper in Binghamton, N.Y. He began exploring journalistic uses of computer programming as an intern in Utica, N.Y.

In general, access to information has improved over the years, Heath said. “There is more data available. It’s more accessible and available to more people.”

For more on the series, which has its own website, see www. fugitives.usatoday.com.