A man hospitalized after being shot by a Sacramento, California, security guard outside a convenience store now is suing the guard and his prior employer, claiming the guard used excessive force.
Shoshana Walter
Reporter
Shoshana Walter is a reporter for Reveal, covering criminal justice. She and reporter Amy Julia Harris exposed how courts across the country are sending defendants to rehabs that are little more than lucrative work camps for private industry. Their work was a finalist for the 2018 Pulitzer Prize in national reporting. It also won the Knight Award for Public Service, a Sigma Delta Chi Award for investigative reporting, and an Edward R. Murrow Award, and was a finalist for the Selden Ring, IRE and Livingston Awards. It led to numerous government investigations, two criminal probes and five federal class-action lawsuits alleging slavery, labor violations and fraud.
Walter's investigation on America's armed security guard industry revealed how armed guard licenses have been handed out to people with histories of violence, even people barred by courts from owning guns. Walter and reporter Ryan Gabrielson won the 2015 Livingston Award for Young Journalists for national reporting based on the series, which prompted new laws and an overhaul of California’s regulatory system. For her 2016 investigation about the plight of "trimmigrants," marijuana workers in California's Emerald Triangle, Walter embedded herself in illegal mountain grows and farms. There, she encountered an epidemic of sex abuse and human trafficking in the industry – and a criminal justice system focused more on the illegal drugs. The story prompted legislation, a criminal investigation and grass-roots efforts by the community, including the founding of a worker hotline and safe house.
Walter began her career as a police reporter for The Ledger in Lakeland, Florida, and previously covered violent crime and the politics of policing in Oakland, California, for The Bay Citizen. Her narrative nonfiction as a local reporter garnered a national Sigma Delta Chi Award and a Gold Medal for Public Service from the Florida Society of News Editors. A graduate of Mount Holyoke College, she has been a Dart Center Ochberg fellow for journalism and trauma at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and a John Jay/Harry Frank Guggenheim fellow in criminal justice journalism. She is based in Reveal's Emeryville, California, office.
Posted inGuns, Hired Guns
Firearms trainer keeps license despite being accused of running a scam
California’s Bureau of Security and Investigative Services has received multiple complaints about Anthony Loyola, a firearms trainer whose curriculum allegedly lacks the required hours at a shooting range but does include films such as “Smokey and the Bandit” and “The Fast and the Furious.”
Posted inGuns, Hired Guns
Former armed guard charged with murder says evidence was fabricated
Former armed security guard Lukace Kendle, who previously was found incompetent to stand trial, got a judge’s approval to represent himself against murder and attempted murder charges in the 2012 shooting of two unarmed black men in a Miami strip club parking lot.
Don't miss a story. Get our investigations and reporters’ insights delivered to your inbox.
Posted inGuns, Guns and Mental Health
California auditor’s report details chronic banned gun owners backlog
State Auditor Elaine Howle said California’s failure to confiscate firearms from people with serious mental illnesses who are prohibited from owning guns is creating a risk to public safety.
Posted inGuns, Hired Guns
Few shootings by security guards get reported or investigated
When a police officer pulls the trigger, it touches off a prescribed set of events, including an investigation. But that’s not the case with security guards.
Posted inGuns, Hired Guns
Here’s how states can improve the security industry
Find out what’s working – and what’s not – in states’ efforts to regulate armed security guards.
Posted inGuns, Hired Guns
Armed guard paralyzes unarmed teen over stolen Cheetos
If Arizona had required gun-ownership background checks for security guards, one guard might not have begun work at a Circle K convenience store where he later shot and paralyzed an unarmed teenager.
Posted inGuns, Hired Guns
When bad cops become bad security guards
Reveal discovered armed guards with histories of civil rights violations, excessive force and corruption that did not trail them from their former lives as police, sheriff’s deputies and corrections officers.
Posted inGuns, Hired Guns
Many armed guards aren’t getting the vetting regulators thought
Twelve states that reported that they are running guard applicants through an FBI records check actually are obtaining only a fingerprint-based criminal background check.
Posted inGuns, Hired Guns
Results may be deadly when armed guards don’t get mental health checks
Only four states require armed-guard applicants to undergo a mental health evaluation, which is standard for law enforcement officers.