Author: Eric Peterson (Eric Peterson)

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Police departments in Salt Lake County spent almost $20 million on civil rights complaints in the past decade 
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Police departments in Salt Lake County spent almost $20 million on civil rights complaints in the past decade 

By Eric S. Peterson, Erin Alberty and Kim Bojórquez The following was reported by The Utah Investigative Journalism Project and Axios Salt Lake City, in partnership with Salt Lake City Weekly. Adrian Govan had just stepped out of his grandmother’s house on Memorial Day 2015, when he saw the Salt Lake City Police patrol car...

Women decry harassment and toxic culture at St. George auto dealership
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Women decry harassment and toxic culture at St. George auto dealership

The following story was reported by The Utah Investigative Journalism Project in partnership with Salt Lake City Weekly. Charity Ann’s nearly decadelong work at the Stephen Wade Auto Center in St. George ended in tears. When she’d been hired there in 2014 as a receptionist, it started with jokes—though not welcome ones. Stuck at her...

Will Utah do anything to help struggling renters now that emergency federal money has dried up?
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Will Utah do anything to help struggling renters now that emergency federal money has dried up?

The following article was funded with support from The Economic Hardship Reporting Project and was reported by The Utah Investigative Journalism Project in partnership with The Salt Lake Tribune. Utah spent more than $200 million in Emergency Rental Assistance (ERA) provided by Congress in 2020. But the state closed down the Utah Rent Relief program...

Who killed Doug Coleman? Mystery of gay man killed in 1978 still lingers.
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Who killed Doug Coleman? Mystery of gay man killed in 1978 still lingers.

By Eric S. Peterson, Megan Quiggle, Will Weber, Jacob Freeman, Andrew Luras, Gaetano Chiarenza, Whit Fuller, Miken McGill, Sorina Trauntvein, Alejandro Lucero, Rhenick Edwards and Reede Nasser. The following story was developed by The Utah Investigative Journalism Project and the University of Utah’s “Cold Case” class investigating unsolved murders in the state, in partnership with...

Renter says she was forced to pay a legal bill to get federal rent assistance
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Renter says she was forced to pay a legal bill to get federal rent assistance

The following story was funded with support from The Economic Hardship Reporting Project and was reported by The Utah Investigative Journalism Project in partnership with The Salt Lake Tribune. When Ivey O’Neill moved into the Garden Lofts apartments, everything seemed perfect. Right in downtown Salt Lake City, it was close to everything and the unit...

Bill would raise major barriers to sue for asbestos injuries in Utah
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Bill would raise major barriers to sue for asbestos injuries in Utah

The following was reported by The Utah Investigative Journalism Project in partnership with The Salt Lake Tribune. In a Feb. 15 committee hearing, Rep. Brady Brammer, R-Pleasant Grove, said HB328 was a common-sense approach to making sure asbestos lawsuits only truly target the guilty. The bill, Asbestos Litigation Amendments would require medical proof an individual...

Utah set aside $10M for homelessness. Instead of services, cities tapped it for police
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Utah set aside $10M for homelessness. Instead of services, cities tapped it for police

The following story was funded by The Economic Hardship Reporting Project and reported by The Utah Investigative Journalism Project in partnership with KUER, the Salt Lake City Weekly, The Standard-Examiner and The Spectrum News. It’s an early January afternoon and behind the Rio Grande Depot in Salt Lake City, several homeless individuals have been tediously...