White vigilante justice tore through New Orleans in the wake of the storm. No official investigation has ever examined the crimes. A.C. Thompson’s reporting on New Orleans was directed and underwritten by the Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute. CIR, ProPublica, and New America Media provided additional support.

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A veteran of the alternative weeklies, A.C. spent nine years writing for the San Francisco Bay Guardian and SF Weekly. His stories in 2003 helped lead to the exoneration of two San Francisco men who’d been wrongly convicted; the duo, who spent thirteen years in prison, were the victims of police and prosecutorial misconduct. In 2005 his series “Forgotten City” prompted San Francisco city officials to create a task force to clean up a long-neglected public housing complex plagued by fire, housing, and health code violations. Collaborating with UC Berkeley academic Trevor Paglen, Thompson co-wrote Torture Taxi: On the Trail of the CIA’s Rendition Flights (Melville House 2006), the first book about the agency’s secret anti-terror program. He is the recipient of many accolades, including the 2005 George Polk award for local reporting.