A fortuitous click
Gun malfunction during struggle with a shoplifting suspect may have been the difference between life and death for Folsom police Folsom police survived a close…
Read MoreArticles by Scott Thomas Anderson
Red flag of courage: Researchers identified 21 potential shootings curbed by family members or law enforcement in just two years
A man veers his SUV onto a sidewalk, accelerating straight at a group of pedestrians as he screams, “I’m going to kill you!” He misses…
Pure preservation
Torchbearers of New Orleans jazz flash a searing side of themselves in Folsom Local crowds have flocked to bands offering a little taste of New…
Hunting poachers
On the trail of the outlaw shooters threatening the Pacific Deer Herd A black tail deer ducks under some fallen pine branches as a pickup…
Sacramento clubs are watching you
City requires popular entertainment venues to collect customers’ personal information, but doesn’t require disclosure Privacy advocates are worried the city of Sacramento is making its…
A crystalized crisis: As meth trafficking surges, doctors and CPS workers struggle with the fall-out
Ten minutes before sunrise, the team hit the house. The FBI SWAT members approached a darkened stretch of 18th Avenue. The street was narrow, crowded…
Privacy hacks
Democratic lawmakers in California are quietly attacking their own landmark privacy law The California Consumer Privacy Act was hailed as a milestone for reining in…
The road to peace: New initiative sees signs of progress in combating gang killings in Sacramento
In 2018, the city of Sacramento managed to escape a grim statistic: It made it 12 months without a child being murdered. Now, an initiative…
The Chinese connection: Federal investigators map an international scheme to produce black market marijuana
A dozen arrests and 100 home seizures result from operations When federal agents finally looked inside the Cadillac, they saw multiple house keys, four garage door…
Midnight Burning: Three murders, three detectives and the remnants of a savage summer
Doyle Hemling was in his bedroom when a car door slammed in the darkness. Hemling lived on Annabelle Avenue, a one-way country road dipping through…
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…