P-I wins award for police series

P-I STAFF

The Seattle P-I has earned a national award for its series on the Seattle Police Department's failure to investigate and discipline itself.

The series, "The Strong Arm of the Law," won the 2009 Excellence in Criminal Justice Reporting Award in the series category given by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

Reported by Eric Nalder, Lewis Kamb and Daniel Lathrop, and edited by Rita Hibbard, the series (which ran in January and February 2008) exposed the questionable handling of complaints against Seattle police over the wrongful use of force, and the overuse of obstruction charges used to cover up wrongdoing.

In the single-story category, Christine Young of The Times Herald-Record in Middletown, N.Y., won for her investigation of a man who has spent the past 20 years in prison for the murder of a prostitute.