Talk:Former Washington D.C. police officer sues district for racial discrimination and harassment

OR
I am writing this report from court documents located on PACER. This report, so far, is written from the initial filing against DC. So since there is A LOT of documents, I am going in stages. So please do not publish just yet :) DragonFire1024 12:02, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
 * All PACER documents can be found on Wikisource at Randy_Squires et al vs. District of Columnia et al. --Brian McNeil / talk 12:09, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Do not mark this abandoned, as soon as I have time, and i am in the right frame of mind, I intend to continue this report. DragonFire1024 13:45, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
 * As noted, the case closes on the 26th of this month - or at least that is when it is next due in Court. --Brian McNeil / talk 08:30, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Question about damages
Is there something odd with the dollar values in the last paragraph? Or is it such in the court documents? The phrase, "Squires is asking at least US$150,000 per defendant (US$350,000)" doesn't seem to add up. Where is the $350,000 from? Are there two or three defendants in this case? If two, should the value in brackets be $300,000, or if three, should it be $450,000? Just not sure. Jcart1534 11:12, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Documents say that the total is 350,000... I read that they were asking for at least 150 a defendant...I could have misread it. But I do not have time tis moment to look at it...but I believe it is from the first document in the Wiki Source listed above. DragonFire1024 11:27, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
 * from the first document: [...]WHEREFORE, each Plaintiff respectfully prays that this Honorable Court enters: (a) Judgment against Defendants for compensatory damages in excess of three hundred fifty thousand dollars ($350,000.00) per Plaintiff;[...]. I couldn't find any reference to any $150,000  figure.  I'm going to change the article to reflect this. Demiquave 22:17, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Future use of PACER
This case came to my attention totally at random while searching for something else in the system. It probably cost about 20-30 dollars to pull all the documents out of the system and I've stuck them over on WikiSource so anyone can check them. DragonFire1024 did most of the "donkey" work reading through the documents and writing up the article, but this is a potentially interesting avenue for getting original reporting. Others can sign up for the PACER system - email me for details. And if you limit the amount of querying you do it is free (less than a certain amount a quarter is waived). I'll obviously be looking this one up again from time to time until we have the trial outcome as a verdict. So, a couple of things.
 * Do people think this is a good way to get unique news?
 * Can people suggest how to get leads to find cases and extract documents?
 * Are there similar systems in other countries than the U.S.?

--Brian McNeil / talk 12:41, 22 June 2007 (UTC)