The hidden thread
The Iu-Mien, Sacramento’s spirited but little-known refugee community, is starting to find its voice A rolling echo rumbles under the call of what sounds like…
Read MoreArticles by Scott Thomas Anderson
A Sacramento crime reporter compares notes with Scotland’s top crime novelist
Ian Rankin’s research and hardened realism has universal appeal I first learned of Scotland’s literary shadow weaver while strolling down Edinburgh’s Young Street in 2015. I’d…
What the bones say: Arrest in grisly murder made with luck, determination and a tale beyond the crime tape
The hikers stopped when they saw the skeleton splayed out along the manzanita and scrub brush. It was weather-beaten. A cervical vertebra was missing from…
The Man Who Saved Reading
Dana Gioia’s battle for the future of the Arts, literature and critical thinking in America Dana Gioia stepped through a Romanesque archway, looked at the…
Corporate cartel logic
Sacramento and Amador among 31 California counties claiming that Big Pharma companies perpetrated an organized criminal conspiracy For Chris, it started with a trip to…
A healing voice
Psychologist’s refugee story remains a motivating force behind her trauma work in Sacramento When Dr. Carolee Tran recalls her last glimpse of Vietnam as a child, the most…
After the war: Trauma still haunts California’s Hmong community
In 1976, Robert By Khang was lost in a city where no one spoke Hmong, where no one could tell him that he’d gotten on…
Nowhere to go: Crammed shelters, a seller’s market and financial challenges brew recipe for a domestic violence disaster
On March 10, Sacramento police Detective Michael Severi sat in a courtroom describing a crime scene from last summer, after officers rushed into a house to…
Gunning for the source: ATF’s gun-tracing investigations are solving crimes across California
A Roseville police officer shot in the face by a .45-caliber Glock in October 2013; a 13-year-old gunned down on the streets of Stockton with…
A Dark Development
Hidden money, weaponized disinformation and a strange turn in Folsom It was a cold night in February, and my car was inching through a rope of…
A Sleepless case: How detectives, prosecutors won groundbreaking Ambien double-murder trial
Placer County attorneys spent weeks battling over whether two teenagers were killed by a recklessly dangerous pill-popper or an accidental victim of Ambien-induced parasomnia. The…
The bling ring: Illegal gambling operation tied to ‘rich-as-f***’ gang in Sacramento
For the second time in four years, law enforcement has broken up an illegal gambling operation in California run by Israeli nationals. The latest investigation…
Ghost of a chance: Battle brews over new anti-ghost gun bill at the state Capitol
A former police officer looks to tackle untraceable assault weapons Mike Gipson smiled as he walked through a lamp-studded hallway inside the state Capitol. Not…
Flame Dreams: Jeremiah Tower remains a California enigma
Sapphire and pomegranate gem lights burn across the gilded waves of the Crest Theatre. A large, eager crowd is spilling into the seats. And then…
The music ends: Rapper Lizk sentenced to 30-years-to-life for simple gun possession
Performer’s situation draws sympathy from the judge handing out the sentence At 25 years old, Deandre Rogers is officially out of strikes. The South Sacramento…
Surveillance debate
Capitol hearing exposes rift between law enforcement lobbies and civil liberty defenders It only took minutes for George Orwell’s1984 to be invoked during an April 3 hearing…
Gripping ghost guns: The death trail of weapons that are untraceable, unrestrictable and so far unstoppable
The house is torn down now. Some papers stapled to a hacked-up stump are the only evidence it ever existed. Before getting ripped to pieces,…