Shimon Prokupecz

Senior Crime and Justice Correspondent

Shimon Prokupecz is an award-winning journalist and CNN's senior crime and justice correspondent. Based in New York, he principally covers law enforcement and breaking national news stories, where his standout reporting has garnered accolades and acclaim from the Emmy's, Peabody's, and George Polk Awards.
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Lt. Shaun Gorski with the Cobb County Sheriff's Department, speaks during an election security training session at Cobb County Emergency Management headquarters on August 23 in Marietta, Georgia.
John Bazemore/AP
‘We’re in a different space’: Police chiefs in battleground states make new plans to secure elections
Nov 1, 2024
Police chiefs across the United States are preparing to tackle misinformation as well as any disturbances not just on Election Day, but in the weeks that follow.
Demetrius Haley, Tadarrius Bean and Justin Smith are seen outside of the federal courthouse in Memphis, Tennessee.
• Video 3:16
George Walker IV/AP
Video Reporter breaks down the verdict in Tyre Nichols case 3:16
Oct 3, 2024
Three former Memphis officers have been convicted of charges of witness tampering in the 2023 fatal beating of Tyre Nichols, and two were acquitted of federal civil rights violations in a death that sparked national protests and calls for broad changes in policing. CNN’s Shimon Prokupecz reports.
Kyle Guthrie is seen in a deposition recording.
Obtained by CNN
Lawyer should be sanctioned for blowing police officer’s cover, city demands
Oct 3, 2024
The length and bushiness of a police officer’s beard has become a key issue in a legal fight in Fontana, California.
Perez is seen during an interrogation.
Obtained by CNN
Police pressured him to confess to a murder that never happened
Sep 6, 2024
When he couldn’t find his elderly dad, Tom Perez called the police in Fontana, California. What followed was a ‘disturbing’ 17-hour interrogation and accusations of murder.
Perez is seen during an interrogation.
• Video 6:36
Obtained by CNN
Video Police use a man’s dog to try to force a confession 6:36
Sep 6, 2024
A man called police to help to find his father. CNN’s Shimon Prokupecz investigates how that turned into an investigation of a murder that never happened.
Former Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District police officer Adrian Gonzales, left, arrives at the Uvalde County Courthouse, Thursday, July 25, 2024, in Uvalde, Texas. Gonzales made his first court appearance on charges of abandoning and failing to protect children. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
Eric Gay/AP
Ex-Uvalde schools police officer pleads not guilty to charges of child endangerment and abandonment in 2022 massacre
Jul 25, 2024
One of the first officers who responded to the Uvalde school massacre in Texas pleaded not guilty Thursday to more than two dozen criminal counts.
nathan cruz uvalde masacre dusa_00001629.png
cnn
Former Uvalde school police chief, officer indicted in 1st-ever criminal charges over failed response to 2022 mass shooting
Jun 28, 2024
A grand jury has indicted two former Uvalde school police officers in the botched law enforcement response to the 2022 mass shooting at Robb Elementary school that left 19 children and two teachers dead, two Texas state government sources with knowledge of the indictment told CNN Thursday.
NYPD officers in riot gear enter Columbia University's encampment as they evict a building that had been barricaded by pro-Palestinian student protesters in New York City on April 30, 2024. Dozens of helmeted police flooded Columbia University's campus in the heart of New York City on April 30, 2024 to evict a building occupied by pro-Palestinian student protesters and detain demonstrators. Police climbed into Hamilton Hall via a second floor window they reached from a laddered truck, before leading handcuffed students out of the building into police vans. (Photo by Jia Wu / AFP) (Photo by JIA WU/AFP via Getty Images)
Jia Wu/AFP/Getty Images
Here’s what we know about those arrested at NYC pro-Palestinian campus protests Tuesday night
May 3, 2024
At Tuesday’s pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University and The City College of New York, 282 people were arrested, according to the New York Police Department.
Scenes from a student protest camp at the University of Pennsylvania.
Evelio Contreras/CNN
At the student protest at UPenn, passions are clear and dialogue is lacking
May 2, 2024
Chants and banners announce the presence of the protest camp at the University of Pennsylvania from blocks away. But many of the protesters don’t want to talk.
Students hold a protest in support of Palestinians at Columbia University, during the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in New York, U.S., April 20, 2024.
Adam Gray/Reuters
Columbia University main campus classes will be hybrid until semester ends; NYU students, faculty arrested during protests
Apr 23, 2024
New York University students and faculty members have been arrested during protests on the school’s campus Monday night, the New York Police Department confirmed to CNN — just miles away from Columbia University, where pro-Palestinian protests began last week and have since spread to campuses across the United States.
Police officers detain pro-Palestinian demonstrators who had set up an encampment on the South Lawn at Columbia University in New York, on Thursday afternoon, April 18, 2024. The police moved Thursday afternoon to quell the protest at Columbia University, and began to arrest protesters at the encampment. (C.S. Muncy/The New York Times)
C.S. Muncy/The New York Times/Redux
Over 100 people arrested as NYPD breaks up pro-Palestinian protest at Columbia University, law enforcement source says
Apr 19, 2024
At least 30 people were detained by New York Police Department officers, CNN witnessed, as police entered Columbia University on Thursday to disperse a pro-Palestinian protest that began a day earlier as the university’s president testified before a House committee about the school’s response to antisemitism.
Shimon Prokupecz Michele Morrow 03 20 2024
• Video 6:48
Video CNN reporter confronts GOP nominee who called for Obama to be executed 6:48
Mar 21, 2024
CNN’s Shimon Prokupecz breaks down his interaction with Michele Morrow, a conservative activist who won the GOP nomination to lead North Carolina’s public school system, whose tweets between 2019 and 2021 called for the execution of prominent Democrats and referenced QAnon.
UVALDE, TEXAS - MAY 24: A memorial dedicated to the 19 children and two adults murdered on May 24, 2022 during the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School is seen on May 24, 2023 in Uvalde, Texas. Today marks the 1-year anniversary of the mass shooting at the school. 19 children and two teachers were killed when a gunman entered the school, opening fire on students and faculty. (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
Brandon Bell/Getty Images
‘Our last chance for justice’: School employees, victims of Uvalde mass shooting begin giving testimony before grand jury
Mar 15, 2024
School employees and victims of the Uvalde mass shooting began giving testimony Friday before a grand jury investigating the failed police response at Robb Elementary School in 2022, according to several people familiar with the proceeding.
Uvalde Police Chief Daniel Rodriguez
City of Uvalde
Uvalde police chief abruptly announces resignation days after report cleared officers in massacre at Robb Elementary School
Mar 13, 2024
Less than a week after the Uvalde City Council received an investigative report clearing local police officers of wrongdoing in the 2022 Robb Elementary School massacre, the Texas city’s police chief abruptly announced Tuesday he is quitting.
SHIMON UVALDE
• Video 2:15
CNN
Video CNN reporter confronts Uvalde investigator who cleared local police of wrongdoing 2:15
Mar 8, 2024
Moments after presenting the findings of an independent report on the May 2022 school massacre in Uvalde, Texas, without assigning blame, the man who led it walked out of a city council meeting without taking questions, sparking the fury of many victims’ families. CNN senior crime and justice correspondent Shimon Prokupecz reports.
UVALDE, TEXAS - APRIL 27: A memorial dedicated to the 19 children and two adults murdered on May 24, 2022 during the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School is seen on April 27, 2023 in Uvalde, Texas. The town of Uvalde prepares to mark the 1-year anniversary of the 19 children and two adults murdered during last year's mass shooting at Robb Elementary School. (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
Brandon Bell/Getty Images
Voters support law enforcement leaders condemned for their failures in Uvalde school massacre
Mar 6, 2024
Two men criticized for their failures to challenge the Uvalde school shooter and rescue children and teachers trapped in the carnage won support from voters to continue as law enforcement leaders in the Texas community.

About

Shimon Prokupecz is an award-winning journalist and CNN’s senior crime and justice correspondent. Based in New York, he principally covers law enforcement and breaking national news stories, where his standout reporting has garnered accolades and acclaim from the Emmy’s, Peabody’s, and George Polk Awards.

In May 2022, Prokupecz led the network’s months-long coverage of the deadly mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, where he garnered numerous exclusives and relentlessly pursued the glaring, unanswered questions about the law enforcement response to the Uvalde, Texas school shooter who killed 19 children and two teachers. His gut-wrenching interview with one surviving teacher underscored the horrific question, “Why didn’t anyone help sooner?”, and resulted in the review of law enforcement and school officials’ roles in the tragedy. Prokupecz and his team’s groundbreaking Uvalde reporting received a George Polk Award for National Television Reporting, and also won a Peabody Award.

In addition to Uvalde, Prokupecz has been at the forefront of multiple major mass shootings for the network, including the New York City subway shooting, the Buffalo supermarket shooting, Pulse Nightclub shooting, and the school shooting in Oxford, Michigan, where he continued to break news and gained exclusive footage of the shooter’s parents’ arrest.

Prokupecz was also a member of the Emmy-award winning team that captured the FBI raid on Roger Stone’s home in 2019, and has covered numerous national stories including the George Floyd Protests, Mueller Investigation, the Justice Department bringing charges against Senator Robert Menendez, Pulse Nightclub shooting, and more.

Previously, Prokupecz was based in the network’s Washington, D.C. bureau, where he played an integral role in covering the investigation examining Russian meddling in U.S. elections.

Prokupecz began his CNN career in 2013 as a justice producer in Washington, D.C., before relocating to the network’s New York bureau as a law enforcement producer where he covered the New York Police Department, FBI, and various law enforcement agencies in the Northeast U.S.

Prior to joining CNN, Prokupecz worked as a producer at WNBC and as an assignment editor at WABC in New York City. He previously served as a paralegal in the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office.

Prokupecz is from Brooklyn, New York and is a graduate of Hunter College.