The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "death squads" ...
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Death in Police Custody
An investigation into the death of a man who suffocated while in the back of a Milwaukee police squad car found officers had violated department policy in not seeking help and the medical examiner missed key signs pointing toward the officers’ actions being a factor in the death. The stories prompted a wave of action and reform: new departmental rules, a public inquest, an FBI investigation and the resignation of the medical examiner.
Tags: Police; death; department policy; medical examiner
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During fatal storm rescue, bravery in the 'fog of war'
Michael Kenwood, an EMT with the Princeton First Aid and Rescue Squad, was the only rescuer killed in the United States during Hurricaine Irene. This story examines the uncertain and confusing circumstances surrounding his death.
Tags: Hurricaine Irene; Michael Kenwood, EMT; Princeton First Aid and Rescue Squad
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The Price of Bananas
In Colombia a paramilitary death squad named the "head-cutters" have killed and tortured many residents, but what few know is that the group was paid for years by corporations doing business in the area. One of the companies was Chaquita Brands International, which admitted making $1.7 million "protection" payments over a six-year period.
Tags: execution; torture; Fernando Aguirre; Salvatore Mancuso; extortion; Mendellin
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CPD Death Squad
The I-Team investigated members of the Cleveland Police Ceremonial Unit who managed to rack up thousands of ceremonial compensatory hours by "'piling on' at the funerals of retired officers." The team found that compensatory payments to the ceremonial unit, hand-picked by the chief, added up to millions of dollars at a time when the city was laying off 261 officers because of budget shortfalls.
Tags: Police; corruption; city government; budgets
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Are you experienced?
This story deals with police brutality. It narrates the death of Mexican legal immigrant Luis Alfonso Torres after he was detained by three members of the Police Dept. of the city of Baytown, west of Houston (Texas). The detention was filmed by a camera mounted on one of the squad's car. When he was detained, Bernstein says, Torres was "suffering from hypertension" and unarmed. "It's bigger than the Rodney King video. After all, in this incident someone died", says a Houston-based Hispanic activist quoted in the story. "Cops killing Mexicans is not new to Harris County", Bernstein says and adds in 1999 the Mexican consulate "proposed a travel warning to advise fellow citizens against visiting Houston because of all the police shootings in the area."
Tags: Baytown Police; Harris County; Harris County District Attorney's Office; Texas ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union); Emergency Medical Service (EMS); Baytown Hispanic Chamber of Commerce; National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
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Plan Columbia
Colombia is now the third-largest recipient of US aid in the world after Israel and Egypt. The two-year, $3.2 billion aid package is to help fight "the war on drugs," by eradicating half of the nation's 300,000 acres of coca fields within five years. Yet others consider the escalating US military presence and its technological aid to the right wing paramilitary forces a thinly veiled military intervention, stabilizing the government in power against guerillas in the coca-producing regions. Kidnappings are up sharply, and others fear they'll increase even more if drugs profits are stymied.
Tags: Columbia; US Aid; War on Drugs; anti-narcotics; School of the Americas; U.S. military advisors; toxic herbicides; Plan Colombia; Pais Libre; kidnapping; FARC; ELN; death squads; human rights; Pentagon's Southern Command; Amnesty International; Paz Colombia; social inequality
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The Death Squad/Who Lives, Who Dies.
Part 1: How the Department of Justice decides who is tried--and who isn't--under the expanded federal capital punishment law. The officials sift through the gruesome evidence of recently filed federal murder cases--and decide whether the government should seek the death penalty for the defendants. Part 2: DOJ seeks consistenceyin capital cases, but defense bar cites vagaries. Is there uniformity or bias?
Tags: crime; court; law; death row; Janet Reno. lawyer
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Still Seeing Red
The CIA now runs a counterterrorism center to stymie the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. In the name of fighting drugs, the agency financed new military intelligence networks in Colombia in 1991. However, these networks have incorporated illegal paramilitary groups into their ranks and fostered death squads. It may be more interested in fighting a leftist resistance movement than in combating drugs.
Tags: Guns Federal government Foreign affairs Politics Military
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No title (id: 12716)
The Nation's investigation of U.S. operations in Guatemala revealed a systematic link between Guatemalan Army death squads and the C.I.A. rogues were responsible for maintaining ties with the Guatemalan death squads. The Nation reported that the links were, in fact, developed and maintained by many C.I.A. officials and said policy was covered up, if not facilitated by, a number of U.S. Ambassadors to Guatemala. (April 17, 24 & June 5, 1995)
Tags: Nairn C.I.A. death squad Contest Military Government 8 pgs.
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No title (id: 10778)
The Nation publishes a series that investigated US plans for the occupation of Haiti; the series explains the American goal of containing Pres. Aristide's movement and guaranteeing the continued dominance of the Haitian elite; the investigation also uncovered the US role on establishing the Haitian paramilitary death squad FRAPH and FRAPH leader Emmanual Constant's employment by the CIA, Oct. 3, 24, 31, 1994.