Why did greater than 1,000 folks die after police subdued them with pressure that is not meant to kill?

Carl Grant, a Vietnam veteran with dementia, wandered out of a hospital room to cost a cellphone he imagined he had. When he wouldn’t sit nonetheless, the police officer escorting Grant body-slammed him, ricocheting the affected person’s head off the ground.

Taylor Ware, a former Marine and aspiring faculty scholar, walked the grassy grounds of an interstate relaxation cease making an attempt to shake the voices in his head. After Ware ran from an officer, he was attacked by a police canine, jolted by a stun gun, pinned on the bottom and injected with a sedative.

And Donald Ivy Jr., a former three-sport athlete, left an ATM alone one night time when officers sized him up as suspicious and tried to detain him. Ivy took off, and police tackled and shocked him with a stun gun, belted him with batons and held him facedown.

Every man was unarmed. Every was not a risk to public security. And regardless of that, every died after police used a type of pressure that isn’t presupposed to be lethal — and could be a lot simpler to cover than the blast of an officer’s gun.

On daily basis, police depend on frequent techniques that, in contrast to weapons, are supposed to cease folks with out killing them, resembling bodily holds, Tasers and physique blows. However when misused, these techniques can nonetheless finish in loss of life — as occurred with George Floyd in 2020, sparking a nationwide reckoning over policing. And whereas that encounter was caught on video, capturing Floyd’s final phrases of “I can’t breathe,” many others all through the US have escaped discover.

Over a decade, greater than 1,000 folks died after police subdued them by way of means not supposed to be deadly, an investigation led by The Related Press discovered. In a whole lot of circumstances, officers weren’t taught or didn’t observe greatest security practices for bodily pressure and weapons, making a recipe for loss of life.

These kinds of lethal encounters occurred nearly in all places, based on an evaluation of a database AP created. Huge cities, suburbs and rural America. Purple states and blue states. Eating places, assisted-living facilities and, mostly, in or close to the properties of those that died. The deceased got here from all walks of life — a poet, a nurse, a saxophone participant in a mariachi band, a truck driver, a gross sales director, a rodeo clown and even a number of off-duty legislation enforcement officers.

The toll, nevertheless, disproportionately fell on Black Individuals like Grant and Ivy. Black folks made up a 3rd of those that died regardless of representing solely 12% of the U.S. inhabitants. Others feeling the brunt have been impaired by a medical, psychological well being or drug emergency, a gaggle notably prone to pressure even when flippantly utilized.

“We have been robbed,” mentioned Carl Grant’s sister, Kathy Jenkins, whose anger has not subsided 4 years later. “It’s like someone went in your home and simply took one thing, and also you have been violated.”

AP’s three-year investigation was carried out in collaboration with the Howard Heart for Investigative Journalism packages on the College of Maryland and Arizona State College, and FRONTLINE (PBS). The AP and its companions centered on native police, sheriff’s deputies and different officers patrolling the streets or responding to dispatch calls. Reporters filed almost 7,000 requests for presidency paperwork and body-camera footage, receiving greater than 700 post-mortem reviews or loss of life certificates, and uncovering video in no less than 4 dozen circumstances that has by no means been revealed or extensively distributed.

Medical officers cited legislation enforcement as inflicting or contributing to about half of the deaths. In lots of others, vital police pressure went unmentioned and medicines or preexisting well being circumstances have been blamed as a substitute.

Video in a number of dozen circumstances confirmed some officers mocked folks as they died, laughing or making feedback resembling “sweaty little hog,” “screaming like somewhat lady” and “lazy f—.” In different circumstances, officers expressed clear concern for the folks they have been subduing.

The federal authorities has struggled for years to depend deaths following what police name “less-lethal pressure,” and the little data it collects is usually saved from the general public and extremely incomplete at greatest. Not more than a 3rd of the circumstances the AP recognized are listed in federal mortality knowledge as involving legislation enforcement in any respect.

When pressure got here, it may very well be sudden and excessive, the AP investigation discovered. Different instances, the pressure was minimal, and but the folks however died, typically from a drug overdose or a mixture of things.

In about 30% of the circumstances, police have been intervening to cease individuals who have been injuring others or who posed a risk of hazard. However roughly 25% of those that died weren’t harming anybody or, at most, have been committing low-level infractions or inflicting minor disturbances, AP’s evaluation of circumstances exhibits. The remainder concerned different nonviolent conditions with individuals who, police mentioned, have been making an attempt to withstand arrest or flee.

A Texas man loitering exterior a comfort retailer who resisted going to jail was shocked as much as 11 instances with a Taser and restrained facedown for almost 22 minutes — greater than twice so long as George Floyd, beforehand unreported video exhibits. After a California man turned silent throughout questioning, he was grabbed, dogpiled by seven officers, shocked 5 instances with a Taser, wrapped in a restraint contraption and injected with a sedative by a medic regardless of complaining “I can’t breathe.” And a Michigan teen was dashing an all-terrain car down a metropolis avenue when a state trooper despatched volts of excruciating electrical energy from a Taser by way of him, and he crashed.

In a whole lot of circumstances, officers repeated errors that consultants and trainers have spent years making an attempt to remove — maybe none extra prevalent than how they held somebody facedown in what is called inclined restraint.

Many policing consultants agree that somebody can cease respiratory if pinned on their chest for too lengthy or with an excessive amount of weight, and the Division of Justice has issued warnings to that impact since 1995. However with no customary nationwide guidelines, what police are taught is usually left to the states and particular person departments. In dozens of circumstances, officers disregarded individuals who advised them they have been struggling for air and even about to die, typically uttering the phrases, “I can’t breathe.”

What adopted lethal encounters revealed how the broader justice system regularly works to protect police from scrutiny, typically leaving households to grieve with out figuring out what actually occurred.

Officers have been often cleared by their departments in inside investigations. Some had a historical past of violence and some have been concerned in a number of restraint deaths. Native and state authorities that examine deaths additionally withheld data and in some circumstances omitted probably damaging particulars from reviews.

One of many final hopes for accountability from contained in the system — what are generally known as loss of life opinions — additionally typically exonerated officers. The health workers and coroners who determine on these didn’t hyperlink a whole lot of the deaths to pressure, however as a substitute to accidents, drug use or preexisting well being issues, typically counting on debunked science or incomplete research from sources tied to legislation enforcement.

Even when these deaths obtain the murder label that deadly police shootings typically get, prosecutors not often pursue officers. Charging police is politically delicate and could be legally fraught, and the AP investigation recognized simply 28 deaths that led to such expenses. Discovering accountability by way of civil courts was additionally robust for households, however no less than 168 circumstances resulted in settlements or jury verdicts totaling about $374 million.

The identified fatalities nonetheless averaged simply two per week — a tiny fraction of the whole contacts police have with the inhabitants. Police leaders, officers and consultants say legislation enforcement shouldn’t bear all of the blame. Because the social security web frays, folks underneath psychological misery or who use stimulant medication like cocaine or methamphetamine are more and more on the streets. Officers despatched to deal with these emergencies are sometimes poorly skilled by their departments.

If incidents flip chaotic and officers make split-second choices to make use of pressure, “folks do die,” mentioned Peter Moskos, a professor at John Jay School of Felony Justice and former Baltimore police officer.

“The one strategy to get right down to zero is to do away with policing,” Moskos mentioned, “and that’s not going to avoid wasting lives both.”

However as a result of the US has no clear concept how many individuals die like this and why, holding police accountable and making significant reforms will stay troublesome, mentioned Dr. Roger Mitchell Jr., a frontrunner within the push to enhance monitoring and one of many nation’s few Black chief health workers when he held the workplace in Washington, D.C., from 2014 to 2021.

“Any time anybody dies earlier than their day in court docket, or dies in an surroundings the place the federal authorities or the native authorities’s job is to care for you,” he mentioned, “it wants transparency. It can’t be in the dead of night of night time.”

“This,” he added, “is an American downside we have to clear up.”

Those that died

Carl Grant didn’t care a lot for soccer. So on Tremendous Bowl Sunday in 2020, relations mentioned, he eased into his black Kia Optima, intending to buy groceries close to his suburban Atlanta residence. The 68-year-old wound up 2½ hours away, the place he got here head to head with police in an encounter that underscores a number of findings central to AP’s investigation: He was Black, he was not threatening bodily hurt, and a seemingly routine matter quickly escalated.

The previous Marine and trucking enterprise proprietor had dementia and certified as a disabled veteran. As he drove that night, he turned disoriented and took an interstate west to Birmingham, Alabama. There, Grant twice tried to go inside homes he thought have been his.

Each instances, residents phoned 911. And each instances, responding officers opted to make use of pressure.

On the first home, Grant was taken to the bottom and cuffed after an officer mentioned he’d stepped towards a associate. Regardless that one officer sensed he was impaired, police launched Grant with out asking medics to look at him — a choice a superior later faulted.

At a second home a few half-mile away, police discovered him sitting in a porch chair. When he didn’t observe an order to get off the porch, a special officer pushed him down the steps, based on beforehand unreleased body-camera video. Grant gashed his brow within the fall.

Officer Vincent Larry, who pushed Grant, went with him to the hospital. When Grant wouldn’t return to his examination room, Larry used an unapproved “hip toss” to carry and slam him, hospital surveillance video confirmed. The again of Grant’s head bounced 4 inches off the ground, a nurse estimated, wrecking his spinal twine in his neck.

After Grant awoke from emergency surgical procedure, he thought his paralysis was a fight damage from the Vietnam Battle. “I’m so sorry this occurred,” he advised household, his sister recalled. He died nearly six months later from the damage.

An inside investigation concluded Larry’s pressure on the hospital was extreme, and in a departure from many different circumstances AP discovered, his division acted: he acquired a 15-day suspension. He’s now not a metropolis worker, a Birmingham spokesperson advised AP. Neither Larry nor the division would remark. A choose lately cited a procedural error in dismissing a lawsuit filed by Grant’s property, which is interesting the ruling.

“He’s nearly 70 and confused,” Grant’s associate, Ronda Hernandez, mentioned. “That’s what I don’t get. You simply don’t try this to outdated folks.”

Grant was one among 1,036 deaths from 2012 by way of 2021 that AP logged. That’s definitely an undercount, as a result of many departments blocked entry to data. Recordsdata that others launched have been blacked out and video blurred, whereas officers routinely used obscure language of their reviews that glossed over pressure.

All however 3% of the lifeless have been males. They tended to be of their 30s and 40s, when police would possibly take into account them extra of a bodily risk. The youngest was simply 15, the oldest 95.

In sheer numbers, white folks of non-Hispanic descent have been the most important group, making up greater than 40% of circumstances. Hispanics have been just below 20% of these killed. However Black Individuals have been hit particularly laborious.

The disproportionate illustration of Black folks tracks analysis findings that they face increased charges and severity of pressure, and even deaths. The Division of Justice has discovered after a number of investigations that Black folks accounted for extra unjustified stops for minor offenses, unlawful searches that produced no contraband, pointless pressure, or arrests with out possible trigger.

Researchers warning that proving — or disproving — discrimination could be laborious due to a lack of awareness. However in some circumstances AP recognized, officers have been accused of profiling and stopping Black folks primarily based on suspicions, as occurred to Donald “Dontay” Ivy Jr.

Ivy was a 39-year-old resident of Albany, New York, who excelled in basketball throughout highschool, served within the U.S. Navy and graduated faculty with a enterprise diploma. On a freezing night time in 2015, he went to an ATM to verify whether or not a delayed incapacity deposit had posted. Officers thought he appeared suspicious as a result of he was strolling with a lean and just one hand within the pocket of his “puffer” coat — indications, they thought, he might need a gun or medication.

Ivy was cooperative once they stopped him, however, they mentioned, he wouldn’t reply how a lot cash he had withdrawn and denied a previous arrest. Police interpreted Ivy’s conduct as misleading with out greedy that Ivy suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. A witness recounted that Ivy appeared “sluggish” when he spoke.

When an officer touched Ivy to detain him — a identified set off for some with extreme psychological sickness — police say Ivy started to withstand. An officer fired a Taser, then Ivy fled. Officers caught up and beat him with batons, shocked him a number of extra instances with a Taser, put him facedown and bought on high of him. By the point they rolled Ivy over, he’d stopped respiratory.

The division shortly dominated that the officers acted appropriately and blamed a “medical disaster” for his loss of life, regardless that it was categorised a murder. A grand jury declined to indict. Nevertheless, the native prosecutor urged police to evaluation insurance policies for Tasers, batons and coping with folks with psychological sickness.

The native chapter of the New York Civil Liberties Union continued to query the cease, saying there was “robust motive to suspect” Ivy was racially profiled. After years in court docket, town paid $625,000 to settle with Ivy’s property. His cousin and shut buddy Chamberlain Guthrie mentioned the way in which Ivy’s life ended was one of the painful issues his household had endured.

“It’d be one factor if Dontay was out right here being a ruffian and he was a thug,” Guthrie mentioned. “However he was none of that.”

When pressure goes fallacious

When folks died after police subdued them, it was actually because officers went too quick, too laborious or for too lengthy — many instances, the entire above.

The USA has no nationwide guidelines for the way precisely to use pressure. As an alternative, Supreme Court docket choices set broad guard rails that weigh pressure as both “objectively cheap” or “extreme,” primarily based partly on the severity of the state of affairs, any instant security risk and energetic resistance.

That regularly leaves states and native legislation enforcement to kind out the particulars in coaching and insurance policies. Finest practices from the federal government and personal legislation enforcement organizations have tried to fill gaps, however aren’t obligatory and typically go ignored, as occurred in a whole lot of circumstances reviewed by AP and its companions.

In 2019, the mom of Taylor Ware, the previous Marine with faculty plans, referred to as 911 when he wouldn’t get again of their SUV throughout a manic episode attributable to bipolar dysfunction. She advised the dispatcher Ware would want house and urged police to attend for backup as a result of he was a former wrestler and is likely to be a handful — recommendation that tracked greatest practices, but wasn’t adopted.

The primary officer to come across Ware at a freeway relaxation cease in Indiana noticed the 24-year-old extending him a hand in greeting. Ware then calmly walked by way of a grassy area and sat down with folded legs.

The officer, an unpaid reserve marshal, assured Ware’s mom he’d had calls like this earlier than. As she and a household buddy watched, he stopped about 10 ft in entrance of Ware, based on video filmed by the buddy and obtained by AP. His police canine barked and lunged a number of instances — a provocation officers are advised to keep away from with the emotionally distressed. Ware remained seated.

After a couple of minutes, Ware walked towards the parking zone. There, the officer mentioned, Ware pushed him away, a split-second act disputed by the buddy. Her video exhibits Ware working and the officer commanding the canine to assault, setting off a cascade of pressure that ended with Ware in a coma. He died three days later.

A police information launch mentioned Ware had a “medical occasion,” an evidence that echoes how police first described George Floyd’s loss of life. The prosecutor in Indiana declined to convey expenses and praised officers for “unimaginable persistence and restraint.” His workplace’s letter brushed previous or omitted key particulars: a number of canine bites, a number of stun-gun shocks, inclined restraint and an injection of the highly effective sedative ketamine.

In dozens of different circumstances recognized by AP, individuals who died got sedatives with out consent, typically after officers urged paramedics to make use of them — a advice legislation enforcement is unqualified to make.

A coroner dominated Ware’s loss of life was as a result of pure causes, particularly “excited delirium” — a time period for a situation that police say causes probably life-threatening agitation, fast coronary heart fee and different signs. Main medical teams oppose it as a prognosis, nevertheless, and say it’s regularly an try and justify extreme pressure.

“It was like that was his physique’s personal fault, that it wasn’t the police’s fault,” Ware’s sister, Briana Garton, mentioned of the post-mortem ruling.

Two consultants who reviewed the case for the AP mentioned police actions — such because the order for the canine to assault, the usage of a Taser within the sternum and restraint facedown with handcuffs and again stress — contributed to Ware’s loss of life.

“This was not correct service,” mentioned police practices professional Stan Kephart, himself a former chief. “This individual needs to be alive at the moment.”

As with Ware, officers resorted to pressure in roughly 25% of the circumstances regardless that the circumstances weren’t imminently harmful. Many started as routine calls that different officers have, again and again, resolved safely. These included medical emergencies phoned in by households, pals or the one who died.

By launching prematurely into pressure, police launched violence and volatility, and in flip wanted to make use of extra weapons, holds or restraints to regain management — a phenomenon generally known as “officer-created jeopardy.” Typically it begins when police misinterpret as defiance somebody’s confusion, intoxication or lack of ability to speak as a result of a medical challenge.

What led as much as the pressure was typically unclear. In additional than 100 circumstances, police both withheld key particulars or witnesses disputed the officer’s account — and body-camera footage didn’t exist so as to add readability. However in about 45% of circumstances, officers turned bodily after they mentioned somebody tried to evade them or resist arrest for nonviolent circumstances. Some sprinted away with medication, for instance, or just flailed their arms to withstand handcuffs or wiggled round whereas held down.

Many instances the way in which officers subdued folks broke policing greatest practices, particularly when utilizing the go-to instruments of restraining folks facedown and surprising them with Tasers.

When carried out correctly, putting somebody on their abdomen or surprising them will not be inherently life-threatening. However there are dangers: Inclined restraint can compress the lungs and put stress on the center, and Taser’s maker has issued warnings in opposition to repeated shocks or concentrating on the physique close to the center. These dangers intensify when security protocols aren’t adopted or when folks with psychological sickness, the aged or these on stimulant medication are concerned.

Some officers concerned in fatalities testified they’d been assured that inclined place was by no means lethal, AP discovered, whereas many others have been skilled to roll folks onto their sides to help respiratory and easily failed to take action.

“In case you’re speaking, you’re respiratory, bro,” an officer, repeating a standard fable about inclined restraint, advised a Florida man following 12 shocks from stun weapons.

“Abdomen is (an) perfect place for them to be. It’s tougher for them to punch me,” testified an officer within the loss of life of a Minnesota man discovered sleeping at a grocery retailer and restrained for greater than half-hour.

In dozens of police or witness movies, those that died started to fade on display, their respiratory changing into shallow, as occurred in suburban San Diego to 56-year-old Oral Nunis.

Nunis was having a psychological break at his daughter’s condo in 2020. He had calmed down, however then the primary arriving officer grabbed his arm, a mere 4 seconds after making eye contact. Nunis begged to go with out being handcuffed. The officer endured. Nunis turned agitated and ran exterior.

At 5 ft, 5 inches tall and 146 kilos, Nunis shortly discovered himself pinned by a number of officers — every no less than 80 kilos heavier than him. Though his physique turned nonetheless, they saved urgent, wrapped him in a full-body restraint gadget and put a spit masks on him. From simply 10 ft away, his daughter tried to console him in his closing minutes: “Daddy, simply breathe.”

The district lawyer’s workplace later cleared the police, calling their pressure cheap as a result of Nunis had posed “unnaturally robust resistance” for his measurement.

As a part of the household’s lawsuit, two pathologists concluded that the restraint officers used led to his loss of life. One officer was requested underneath oath if stress on somebody’s again may impair respiratory. “I’ve had a number of our bodies on high of me throughout totally different coaching situations,” the 6-foot, 265-pound officer mentioned, “and I by no means had issue respiratory.”

Using Tasers could be equally misinformed. An officer shocked Stanley Downen, 77, a former ironworker with Alzheimer’s illness who served throughout the Korean Battle, as he wandered the grounds of his veterans’ residence in Columbia Falls, Montana. The electrical energy locked up his physique and made him fall with out management of his limbs. He hit his head on the pavement and later died.

The officer mentioned underneath oath that he hadn’t learn any warnings, together with these from Taser producer Axon Enterprise Inc., concerning the dangers of surprising the aged or individuals who may very well be injured in the event that they fell. He testified that Downen was “armed with rocks,” however a witness advised police Downen by no means raised his palms to throw them. The police chief cleared the officer, although a police professional employed by the household discovered he didn’t observe accepted practices.

In about 30% of deaths that AP logged, civilians and officers confronted potential or clear hazard, extenuating circumstances that meant police didn’t at all times observe greatest practices. In about 170 of these circumstances, officers mentioned an individual charged, swung or lunged at them, or police arrived to search out folks holding somebody down after a combat. Within the different roughly 110 circumstances, police have been making an attempt to cease violent assaults in opposition to others, together with officers.

There was a Kansas man who used his aged mom as a protect when deputies arrived. And there was a 41-year-old concrete mason in Minnesota who choked and punched his grownup daughter earlier than grabbing an officer by the throat and pushing her right into a window.

In one of the violent encounters, three officers in Cohasset, Massachusetts, confronted Erich Stelzer, a 6-foot-6-inch bodybuilder who was stabbing his date so viciously that the partitions have been purple together with her blood.

Moderately than fireplace their pistols that night time in 2018, two of the officers used their Tasers and managed to handcuff Stelzer, 25, as he thrashed on the ground. Stelzer stopped respiratory, and the officers couldn’t revive him. The native prosecutor decided they’d dealt with the state of affairs appropriately and would have been justified in taking pictures Stelzer as a result of he offered a deadly risk.

Whereas the officers have been relieved to have saved the girl’s life, additionally they wrestled with killing a person regardless of doing their greatest to keep away from it.

“Because the time glided by after the incident, , it wasn’t misplaced on me that he was somebody’s son, somebody’s brother,” Detective Lt. Gregory Lennon mentioned. “And I’m sorry that he died. , it wasn’t our intention.”

Lack of accountability

Understanding how and why folks die after pressure could be troublesome. Info is usually scarce or authorities in any respect ranges received’t share what it has.

In 2000, Congress began making an attempt to get the Justice Division to trace deaths involving legislation enforcement. The division has acknowledged its knowledge is incomplete, blames spotty reporting from police departments, and doesn’t make no matter data exists publicly out there.

Mortality knowledge maintained by the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention additionally has gaps. The AP discovered that when a loss of life certificates doesn’t listing phrases like “police” and “legislation enforcement,” the CDC’s language-reading software program doesn’t label the loss of life as involving “authorized intervention.” This implies the loss of life knowledge flagged police involvement in, at most, 34% of the greater than 1,000 deaths the investigation recognized.

Among the many mislabeled deaths is that of Daniel Prude, a 41-year-old Black man. He died in 2020 whereas restrained and coated with a spit hood in Rochester, New York. The high-profile incident was caught on video, however whereas his loss of life certificates famous “bodily restraint,” it made no direct point out of police.

The CDC acknowledges the info undercounts police-involved deaths, however says it wasn’t primarily supposed to flag them. Employees lack the time or assets to corroborate loss of life certificates particulars, officers mentioned.

In 2017, main pathologists really helpful including a checkbox to the U.S. customary loss of life certificates to establish deaths involving legislation enforcement — as is already carried out with tobacco use and being pregnant. They argued higher knowledge may assist inform higher practices and stop deaths. Nevertheless, the proposal hasn’t gained traction.

“This can be a long-standing, not-very-secret secret about the issue right here: We all know little or no,” mentioned Georgetown College legislation professor Christy Lopez, who till 2017 led the Justice Division workplace that investigates legislation enforcement companies over extreme pressure.

In the meantime, legal guidelines in states like Pennsylvania, Alabama and Delaware block the discharge of most, if not all, data. And somewhere else, resembling Iowa, departments can select what they want to launch, even to relations like Sandra Jones.

Jones’ husband, Brian Hays, 56, had battled an dependancy to painkillers since injuring his shoulder at a manufacturing facility job. She final noticed him alive one September night time in 2015 after he referred to as 911 as a result of his psychological well being and methamphetamine use was making him delusional. Officers who arrived at their residence in Muscatine, Iowa, ordered her to depart.

The following morning, a hospital contacted Jones to say Hays was there. As Hays was on life assist, medical doctors advised her that he had a number of Taser marks on his physique and scrapes on his face and knees, she recalled. Neighbors additionally mentioned they’d seen Hays run out of the home, clad solely in boxer shorts, and make it across the nook earlier than officers caught him.

When Jones got down to unravel what occurred, she mentioned, police wouldn’t hand over their reviews. A detective later advised her officers had shocked Hays and tied his ft earlier than he went into cardiac arrest. She couldn’t glean why that a lot pressure was mandatory.

In time, Jones managed to get the post-mortem report from the health worker’s workplace, confirming the pressure and a battle. However an lawyer advised her successful a lawsuit to pry out extra data was unlikely. Hays’ loss of life didn’t even make the native information.

“All I do know is, one thing horrible occurred that night time,” she mentioned. “I’ve pictured him laying on that cement highway extra instances than I can inform you. I image him there, struggling to breathe.”

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This story is a part of an ongoing investigation led by The Related Press in collaboration with the Howard Heart for Investigative Journalism packages and FRONTLINE (PBS). The investigation consists of the Deadly Restraint interactive story, database and the documentary, “Documenting Police Use Of Pressure,” premiering April 30 on PBS.

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Contributing to this story have been Thalia Beaty, Martha Bellisle, Jacques Billeaud, Michael Catalini, Brett Chambers, Mary Dalrymple, Trenton Daniel, Kristin M. Corridor, Roxana Hegeman, Carla Okay. Johnson, Angeliki Kastanis, Denise Lavoie, Andy Lemberger, Brian McDonnell, Aaron Morrison, Sean Mussenden, Serginho Roosblad, Rhonda Shafner, Taylor Stevens, Mitch Weiss and Helen Wieffering.

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To view tales by journalists on the Howard Heart for Investigative Journalism packages, go here.

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The Related Press receives assist from the Public Welfare Basis for reporting centered on prison justice. This story additionally was supported by Columbia College’s Ira A. Lipman Heart for Journalism and Civil and Human Rights along side Arnold Ventures. The AP is solely answerable for all content material.

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Contact AP’s international investigative workforce at Investigative@ap.org or https://www.ap.org/tips/