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“Florence Exposed” is a three-part Phoenix New Times investigative series by Monica Alonzo and Stephen Lemons that demonstrates how small-town political corruption had tragic consequences in the Arizona prison city of Florence. The events described in “Florence Exposed” were developed after a tip from Phoenix NAACP leader Oscar Tillman, who trusted the alternative newspaper above all other Phoenix-area media to investigate what he had been told by a Florence police officer about politically influenced corruption within the city department. The officer and his partner - by that time fired for trying to find out what really happened in a child's slaying and a teenager's alleged rape - then turned over records to the paper that were at the core of the reporting. By demonstrating how the department, either purposely or through gross ineptitude, botched the investigations of these crimes, Phoenix New Times laid the groundwork for what should be a police-misconduct probe by state or federal authorities - if officials in Arizona could be trusted to do the right thing.