Armed and Untouchable: ICE's history of deadly force
An analysis of six years of shootings by immigration agents reveals a rogue force whose officers sometimes recklessly fire their weapons. In this time, ICE officers have shot and killed 23 people.
I sued ICE to produce records that detail all the ICE shootings between 2015 and 2021, and I found that officers shot people in public places, endangering bystanders, off-duty, and even people who weren’t even the target of an arrest or operation.
Another 20 public records requests across the country later, I found that no shooting resulted in a criminal conviction. Probably not even discipline. A four year investigation into an opaque agency, my story was published by The Trace, Business Insider, and Type Investigations.
ICE agents 'don't fire warning shots'
Exclusive training documents encourage quick, decisive use of deadly force. They say little about de-escalation, and they teach ICE agents how to avoid - and get out of - legal blowback. Published by Business Insider & Type investigations
Popping Off
The Impossibility of Reporting the Story of Gaza
The Impossibility of Reporting the Story of Gaza
They make viral gun videos—with hardline Christian values.
T.Rex Arms sells gun accessories. According to one expert, “The product is ideology, too.”
This story also appeared in Mother Jones March/April print issue.
The Impossibility of Reporting the Story of Gaza
The Impossibility of Reporting the Story of Gaza
The Impossibility of Reporting the Story of Gaza
The work of Gaza’s journalists has been essential these past months, but as the challenges of reporting continue to mount, the world is getting only a fraction of the story.
Survivor's Guilt
The Impossibility of Reporting the Story of Gaza
Why Israel's push into Gaza is killing so many children
For Palestinians who just left Gaza, witnessing the war from afar evokes helplessness and grief
Why Israel's push into Gaza is killing so many children
Palestinians Claim Social Media ‘Censorship’ Is Endangering Lives
Why Israel's push into Gaza is killing so many children
Children account for a startlingly high share of Palestinians killed in Gaza — roughly 41%. Gaza's demography, geography, and IDF military tactics have contributed to the high death toll.
Palestinians Claim Social Media ‘Censorship’ Is Endangering Lives
Palestinians Claim Social Media ‘Censorship’ Is Endangering Lives
Palestinians Claim Social Media ‘Censorship’ Is Endangering Lives
Censorship of social media and disruptions to electricity and internet access have meant people under fire in Gaza can’t get the information they need to survive.
How The Far Right Is Escaping Biden's Attempted Crackdown On 'Ghost Guns'
New regulations on untraceable firearms have only spurred threats against law enforcement and efforts by extremist groups to avoid oversight. And as threats against federal law enforcement mount, experts on political violence question whether the government will be able to effectively respond and slow the tide of untraceable guns. For HuffPost National.
For The Trace, I report about a new crop of ideologues using voter fraud conspiracy theories and religious appeals are pushing their followers toward armed rebellion. To tell this story, l delved into campaign platforms, public appearances, posts on fringe websites and social media, analyzed engagement with their supporters, followed their newsletters, and closely tracked right-wing events.
The Civilian Casualty Files
For almost two years, I digitized the records published, making them searchable, and helped to analyze them in a database.
The New York Times made public hundreds of the Pentagon’s confidential assessments of reports of civilian casualties resulting from U.S.-led airstrikes in Iraq and Syria.
This work is part of a package that won the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting (2022), a Polk Award for Military Reporting (2022), and The Roy Ronan Award from the Overseas Press Club (2022).
Working with the renowned Visual Investigations team at The New York Times, our investigation found inconsistent approaches to assessing claims of civilians killed by coalition forces — including failures to conduct simple internet searches.
This work is part of a package that won the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting (2022) and The Roy Ronan Award from the Overseas Press Club (2022).
The Boogaloo Bois Have Guns, Criminal Records and Military Training. Now They Want to Overthrow the Government.
Co-published by ProPublica and FRONTLINE PBS, this report is part of our larger reporting on violent far-right extremist activity across the country. Through interviews, extensive study of social media and a review of court records, some previously unreported, we identified more than 20 Boogaloo Bois or sympathizers who’ve served in the armed forces. Over the past 18 months, 13 of them have been arrested on charges ranging from the possession of illegal automatic weapons to the manufacture of explosives to murder.
This reporting is part of a larger package that won the Polk Award for National Television Reporting (2022). This story also won an Edward R. Murrow award for Continuing Coverage of the Jan. 6 insurrection (2022).
Inside The Right-Wing Movement To Boost Untraceable ‘Ghost Guns’
For HuffPost National, I delved into what ghost guns are (including 3-D printed ones) and how the quickly growing far-right movement in the USA is furthering their dissemination. The result is a piece about the threat of violence – including that which has already played out – and how ghost guns are a flourishing online industry, with unique photos, screengrabs, and use of embedded social media.
In an Amicus Brief to the Supreme Court underscoring how unfettered access to firearms poses a grave national security and public safety threat to the nation, this piece was cited.
Repatriating ISIS Foreign Fighters Is Key to Stemming Radicalization, Experts Say, but Many Countries Don’t Want Their Citizens Back
For FRONTLINE PBS, I monitored repatriation efforts of the 10 countries where most individuals traveled to Iraq and Syria to join ISIS. What I found was an ongoing theme of inaction and an evergrowing threat of future radicalization. The analysis piece has been used by human rights organizations, universities, think tanks, and other research institutes in further studying this urgent issue.
Bodies (2023), Episodes 1, 4, 5, 6
I was a reporter and producer for four episodes on KCRW's Bodies, a documentary series that begins with a medical mystery. Sometimes the sickness is in the body, and sometimes the sickness is in the system.
Episodes Early Birds, The Fourth Trimester, and The Fight for Abortion training earned me a co-win of The Livingston Award (2024) for National reporting, alongisde host Allison Behringer.
“I have done a lot of tough and dangerous reporting — interviewing warlords, trekking across deserts, dodging bullets in urban warfare. But years of experience have taught me that one of the hardest things to do is to get children to talk — openly, authentically and enthusiastically talk. Allison Behringer and Lila Hassan got kids to open up about some of the most intimate and private parts of their lives — their changing bodies. The “Bodies” episodes honored here are stories of huge social and political importance told in the most intimate and human ways. Innovative and first-rate journalism from start to finish.”
— Lydia Polgreen, Livingston Awards national judge
American Insurrection (2021, 2022)
I was a reporter and associate producer a FRONTLINE PBS documentary in collaboration with ProPublica. We investigated the rise of extremism in America. In the aftermath of the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol, our team examined how far-right extremist groups had evolved in the wake of the deadly 2017 Charlottesville rally — and the threat they posed.
The documentary won a Polk Award for National Television Reporting (2022), became DuPont Columbia Finalist (2022), received a Peabody nomination, and is now a two-time Emmy nominated film.
Plot to Overturn the Election (2022)
I was the associate producer, line producer, and fact-checker for a FRONTLINE PBS documentary in collaboration with ProPublica. We traced the hidden sources of misinformation about the 2020 election, demonstrating how a handful of people have had an outsized impact on the current U.S. crisis of democratic legitimacy.
The documentary won a 2023 Edward R. Murrow National Award for News Documentary the 2023 Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Television Political Journalism.
A NJ Detention Center Staffer Has Self-Quarantined Due to Potential COVID-19 Exposure
A NJ Detention Center Staffer Has Self-Quarantined Due to Potential COVID-19 Exposure
A NJ Detention Center Staffer Has Self-Quarantined Due to Potential COVID-19 Exposure
American Muslims face a lonely Ramadan during lockdown
A NJ Detention Center Staffer Has Self-Quarantined Due to Potential COVID-19 Exposure
A NJ Detention Center Staffer Has Self-Quarantined Due to Potential COVID-19 Exposure
Putting Little Yemen On The Map
A NJ Detention Center Staffer Has Self-Quarantined Due to Potential COVID-19 Exposure
Putting Little Yemen On The Map
The Bronx Ink (Columbia University)
FRONTLINE PBS - Digital
FRONTLINE PBS - Digital
FRONTLINE PBS - Digital
While a reporter for FRONTLINE PBS, I wrote breaking, enterprise, and investigative digital pieces with a lens on government accountability on extremism, human rights, and global beats.
Muck Rack
FRONTLINE PBS - Digital
FRONTLINE PBS - Digital
A freelancer, much of my work - including republished articles - can be found on my Muckrack profile.