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 "use of force" ...
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San Jose police: Misdemeanor Justice
The San Jose police are the most aggressive city in California when it comes to misdemeanor crimes and the arrests. They have the largest per capita of arrests in the state and many of these arrests are for petty crimes or resisting arrest where no crime was actually involved. Many of these crimes involve the attitude of those being arrested, public intoxication without proper tests, and disturbing the peace. A number of these arrests are based on color and a great deal of force was used in these arrests.
Tags: law enforcement; police department; enforcement; laws; communities; crime; Hispanics; Latinos; statistics
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Who's Watching the Cops?
This article looks into the usefulness of civilian oversight of the police and allegations against them due to excessive force are handled by two towns in the area of coverage. Additionally, everyone agrees public oversight of the police is necessary, but not sure if it the most effective. Further, the public oversight group only has so much power and is often left without taking corrective action.
Tags: law enforcement; civilian; Durham; Chapel Hill; Police Review Board; volunteers; police department
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Go Army or Go to Jail
The Commanding General over recruiting for the entire United States Army had made a promise to KHOU: the overly aggressive, even illegal tactics the station uncovered three years earlier would be corrected. The station believed him. Sadly, they discovered they were sorely mistaken. "Go Army or Go to Jail" is a follow-up story but it also broke new ground in the investigation. The investigators uncovered new and illegal tactics the Army uses to force unwilling teenagers to join its ranks and solve a new problem: the number of participants in something called the delayed entry program had dwindled to an all-time low. Some recruiters' solution? To bully, threatened and lie to teenagers and their families in hopes of making mission and meeting quota. Their findings spurred the station to search for and discover what some believe is the very root of Army recruiting abuses that have gone on for years. The investigation contends that the U.S. Army has, quite simply, ignored recommendation after recommendation from the investigative arm of Congress on how the Army could reform.
Tags: U.S. Army; recruiting; investigation; follow-up; Houston; Texas; U.S. Government Accountability Office
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SLICC Deal for Pentagon Brass, Pimp My Ride -- Air Force Edition,
In June 2008, sources came to the Project on Government Oversight about the Air Force wasting taxpayer funds. They presented documents and e-mails that raised questions about two little-known programs to build "world-class" luxury aircraft accommodations for the military and senior civilian leadership. The accommodations -- called SLICC (Snior Leader In-transit Conference Capsule) and SLIP (Senior Leader In-transit Pallet) -- were justified as filling a "deficiency gap," but e-mails obtained by POGO showed that there was significant internal dissent within the Air Force over this extravagant waste of taxpayers' funds. Requirements documents obtained by POGO emphasize the need for "aesthetically pleasing" accommodations. E-mails obtained by POGO state that Air Force generals upgraded the leather, carpet, and wood choices, adding hundreds of thousands of dollars to the program cost. After the first FLIP was procured, General Robert McMahon expressed dissatisfaction with the color of the seat leather and type of wood used. He directed that the leather be reupholstered from brown to Air Force blue leather, and requested to replace the wood originally used with cherry. Internal Air Force e-mails make it clear that the Air Force leadership's overriding concern us SLICC's level of luxury. Contract documents obtained by POGO revealed that these accommodations do not provide any additional operational capabilities (e.g. communications advantages) beyond those currently existing.
Tags: government spending; Air Force; SLICC; SLIP; misconduct; overspending
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Blackwater Blood Money & Other Scandals
ABCNews.com's "The Blotter" has tracked the operations of one of the most controversial private security companies operating in Iraq, Blackwater. ABC news focused on the investigation following a deadly shooting in Baghdad that left 17 civilians dead. Reporters in the U.S. and in Baghdad followed the investigation by developing relationships with the victims of the shooting and their families, obtaining exclusive documents and developing knowledgeable sources inside the State Department. The team began their investigation by looking behind-the-scenes at Blackwater's effort in Iraq to make compensation settlements with the survivors and victims' families and capped with reporting that one of the Blackwater guards involved in t he shooting signed a secret plea deal to testify against his five indicted co-workers. In the course or reporting, ABC news also uncovered numerous other unreported controversies surrounding Blackwater's operations. Despite being accused of improper use of force, arms trafficking and overbilling, the State Department renewed Blackwater's $1.2 billion contract earlier this year.
Tags: Iraq War; Blackwater; contracting; arms trafficking; improper use of force; U.S. State Department
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The Social Security backlog
A four-part, multi-article series examined the backlog of social security cases, particularly in the Portland, Ore. area. When presented with the findings, Social Security top official Commissioner Michael J. Astrue acknowledged the backlog of disability claims has gone "seriously in the wrong direction." The reporters found that most people who fight for Social Security benefits after being initially denied with their cases, but the average wait for a disability hearing was 512 days -- 669 days in the Portland office. The series highlighted that the system was particularly hard on veterans as well. Also, using internal Social Security figures, the reporters determined that the agency would pay about $9 billion in benefits to people who no longer deserved them. They later found that the real cost for the failure to review disability cases was between $10 and $11 billion.
Tags: social security; veterans' care; Department of Veteran's Affairs; disability hearings; medical benefits; Freedom of Information Act
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Putting Tasers to the Test
CBC obtained more than 4,000 Taser-use reports from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), created a database to analyze data and found that the RCMP's taser use was on the rise. The stories highlighted the recurrence of similar themes: abuse of force; a weapon increasingly used on vulnerable people; a pattern of multiple firings of the stun gun on a suspect when police regulations call for minimal use; and Canada's national police force, the largest in Canada, bent on suppressing data detailing how its officers use the weapons.
Tags: police behavior; taser;
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Police relying on Taser as a fix-all on the force
Stettler investigates the use of Tasers by police and whether the weapon is truly safe or if it threatens the lives of people on which it is used. Two deaths were linked to Tasers over the past three years in Utah's largest law enforcement agencies.
Tags: law enforcement; stun gun; force, brutality; cop;
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Under the Radar: U.S. Aire Force purchase of air defense shields against terrorist attacks raises questions
"The Pentagon charged the US Air Force Electronic Systems Command, or ESC, with the task of developing a radar system that would marry NORAD and FAA radars together in a manner meant to prevent terrorists from using hijacked jets for 9/11-like attacks. Under the guise of such work, ESC instead used the panic of the 9/11 charter to fund another project that the Air Force and Pentagon had rebuffed years earlier as being too expensive: the funding of a mobile air defense system."
Tags: air force; defense; military; federal government; FOIA; government spending
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The Killing in Haditha
CBS interviewed a Marine, Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich, charged with murder in the "killing of 24 Iraqi civilians...on Nov. 19, 2005." CBS "went beyond the interview to explore the context in which the killings took place, the nature of the occupation of Haditha, and the rules of engagement governing the use of deadly force."
Tags: marines; military; Iraq; Haditha; Fallujah; house clearing; deadly force