Peter Nickeas
Peter Nickeas is a reporter at the Chicago Tribune where he covers violence and breaking news. He has focused on creating an understanding of violence and those most affected by it. His recent stories have looked at the lives and work of police, two former rivals from a decades-long conflict working to improve the lives of young gang members, the use of rifles and how it's affected a neighborhood, and 7th- and 8th-graders grieving the shooting death of a classmate.
He started the Tribune's shootings database while working the overnight shift in 2011 and expanded the scope of overnight reporting responsibilities. He worked as a general assignment and municipal government reporter at the Times of Northwest Indiana and a city government reporter in Casper, Wyoming after graduating from the University of Illinois at Springfield in 2009.