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 "military police" ...
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The Deadliest Place in Mexico
The Juarez Valley, a narrow corridor of green farmland carved from the Chihuahuan desert along the Rio Grande, was once known for its cotton, which rivaled Egypt’s. But that was before the Juarez cartel moved in to set up a lucrative drug smuggling trade. “The Deadliest Place in Mexico” explores untold aspects of Mexico’s drug war as it has played out in the small farming communities of this valley. The violence began in 2008, when the Sinaloa cartel moved in to take over the Juarez cartel’s turf. The Mexican government sent in the military to quell the violence — but instead the murder rate exploded. While the bloodshed in the nearby City of Juarez attracted widespread media attention, the violence spilling into the rural Juarez Valley received far less, eve as the killings began to escalate in brutal ways. Community advocates, elected officials, even police officers were shot down in the streets. Several residents were stabbed in the face with ice picks. By 2009, the valley, with a population of 20,000, had a murder rate six times higher than Juarez itself. Newspapers began to call the rural farming region the “Valley of Death.” This investigation uses extensive Freedom of Information Act requests, court documents, and difficult-to-obtain interviews in Spanish and English with current and former Juarez Valley residents, Mexican officials, narcotraffickers and U.S. and Mexican law enforcement officials, to reveal that many of these shocking deaths were perpetrated with the participation of Mexican authorities. It shows scenes of devastation — households where six members of a single family were killed, without a single police investigation. It uncovers targeted killings by masked gunmen of community activists and innocent residents for speaking out against violence and repression facilitated by corrupt military and government officials. And it gathers multiple witnesses who describe soldiers themselves, working in league with the Sinaloa cartel, perpetrating violence against civilians. "The cemeteries are all full. There isn't anywhere left to bury the bodies," one former resident said. "You'll find nothing there but ghost towns and soldiers."
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Watching the Protesters
This article exposes the military and local police intelligence operations worked to infiltrate and spy on a the ranks of peaceful protesters, dispaching a Ft. Lewis operative to not only heal lead protest demonstrations, but to provide secretive blow-by-blow accounts of the protesters' plans and positions to the police and Army. In effect, the Army double agent helped organize and lead them to their arrests and prosecutions.
Tags: army; police; Seattle; Washington; Army Force Protection Unit; Washington State Fusion Center; FBI; Homeland Security; Department of Justice; Posse Comitatus Act;
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Domestic Abuse Inside the U.S. Military
Domestic violence acts in the Army have been “steadily rising over the last decade, despite Army reports to the contrary”. Many Army spouses’ slain as a result of the domestic violence and many involving soldiers who saw action in Iraq. Also, a level of violence was soaring around some of the largest Army installations “through examination of police records and court filings”.
Tags: Congressional; Pentagon; weapons; FOIA; Fort Hood; Army Rangers; families; abuse; bureaucracy; advocates; mental health
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Disposable Heroes
The original story focused on Iraqi war veteran James Elliott, who suffered a psychotic breakdown and was stun gunned by police while taking the drug Chantix in a smoking cessation study by the Department of Veterans Affairs. The series examined the use of military veterans as guinea pigs in drug experiments conducted by the federal government and exposed numerous ethical lapses, including a system-wide failure to notify participants when the Food and Drug Administration issues new drug warnings.
Tags: Department of Veterans Affairs; veteran; drug trials; Food and Drug Administration; Soldiers for the Truth; human research studies; Pfizer; PTSD; smoking
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Policing the Air Marshals
"The Federal Air Marshal Service presents the image of an elite undercover force charged with making life and death decisions that demand sound judgment. ProPublica found that dozens of federal air marshals have been charged with crimes, including 18 felonies, and hundreds more have been accused of misconduct."
Tags: military; air marshals; corruption; loose hiring practices; felonies; criminal records
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A Trustworthy Lie Detector?
The Computer Voice Stress Analyzer (CVSA) is a lie detector "said to be able to determine truth or deception by tone of voice or stress level." The machine has "been sold to hundreds of police departments and the U.S. military," with these organizations using it to put people in jail and interrogate terror suspects even though "not a single scientific study has been done to show the CSVA actually works." The Pentagon has now banned use of the machine. An ABC News investigation discovered that while the machine is sold for $10,000 apiece with claims of 98 percent accuracy, some of its convictions have been overturned. In addition, CSVA creator and National Institute for Truth Verification CEO Dr. Charles Humble is "not a medical doctor and does not have a PHD from an accredited university. Instead, he was awarded a Dr. of Psychology after taking a few hours of bible studies at a bible college which was located in an Indiana strip mall."
Tags: Computer Voice Stress Analyzer; Dr. Charles Humble; prisoner interrogation; Institute for Truth Verification; diploma mills
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Blackwater: Inside America's Private Army
This series focuses on Blackwater USA, one of the most visible players in the private military industry. Tens of thousands of private military soldiers are on the ground in Iraq, armed and engaging in combat, but they are not subject to military justice or chain of command. This situation raises questions about oversight, standards, coordination and accountability. Blackwater's presence in Iraq escalated the war in 2004, when four of its contractors were killed and strung up from a bridge in Fallujah. Now, Blackwater is seeking out new markets, offering itself as an army for hire to police the world's trouble spots.
Tags: war; military; military-industrial complex; army; soldiers; Iraq; contractors; government contracts; diplomacy; federal government; defense; government documents; special forces
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Harvest of Women: The True Story About the Murders of Girls and Women in Juarez, Mexico (1993-2005)
Author Diana Washington Valdez examines the circumstances behind the approximately 470 deaths of girls and women between the years of 1993 and 2005 in the border city of Juarez, Mexico. Her investigation discusses the brutality with which many of the victims were murdered, and the inability of local law enforcement to properly investigate these killings. Various law enforcement authorities undercounted the tally of dead by about 100, tried to blame the crimes on scapegoats, ignored viable suspects and "rejected or minimized information and leads provided by the FBI in El Paso, Texas." Investigations were further hindered by the fact the police and military were involved with the Juarez drug cartel, which "has operations in all the places where similar murders were committed during the past six years." Members of the Mexican government "protected prominent people involved in some of the murders and hid the findings of previous investigations. Therefore, it is unlikely the case will ever be completely solved, and the killers brought to justice.
Tags: Murder; murder of women; brutal murder; mutilated victims; mutilation; rape; drug cartel; government corruption; law enforcement corruption; unsolved murder
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Justice at War
After analyzing the Army Court-Martial Management Information system database it was found that soldiers who broke military rules were more likely to face charges than those who violated civilian law. These violations were mainly aimed at Iraqi civilians and included robbing , kidnaping and killing them. Also it was found that the Army's recruitment has enlisted men of questionable background. Some of these men would not be hired by other law enforcement groups such as the police, due to their criminal records.
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Military Outsourcing in Iraq (series)
The author investigated the outsourcing of the Iraqi War by the US government. The reports covered the use of private contractors to train the Iraqi police force, the problems they encountered despite the positive spin from high ranking American military officials and presented a slide show of the training process, giving a visual indication of the difficulty faced by the trainers.
Tags: military; Iraq; Iraqi War; War on Terrorism; Iraqi Police Force; private security contractors; infiltration; insurgents; exit strategy; troop reductions; U.S State Department; SAIC; DynCorp