If your neighbor tried to kill someone, would you want to know? What if he or she was charged with child abuse, domestic violence, felony assault, drunken driving or fleeing police?
According to the U.S. Department of State, that’s classified, secret information if it involves foreign diplomats working on American soil.
The News4 I-Team has been embroiled in a seven-year battle to access the names of foreign diplomats accused of violent and dangerous crimes. It began in 2008, when we filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the State Department, asking for a list of diplomats charged with our nation’s most serious driving offenses.
In 2014, six years into our fight, we received a partial list of offenders pulled over by police between 2001 and 2009. We found one-third were caught drinking and driving, some going more than 100 mph, while others were charged with hit-and-run and trying to elude police.
But the list we received was incomplete — it only went to 2010 and didn’t provide basic information like the suspect’s first name or the location of the crime.
Click through below for more on the investigation.
