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ASSIST OUR INVESTIGATION INTO GUN SALES IN MASS

For more than a year, the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism has examined hundreds of state purchasing agreements, for everything from heavy crime-fighting equipment to consumables for laser printers. Along the way, we also teamed up with MuckRock and the Emerson College Engagement Lab.

Of the many contracts that have caught our attention, those stemming from firearms purchases have proven to be especially dubious, with entities on all sides operating in an unchecked fashion. For most of these procurements, there was no competitive bidding. And the process is far from transparent.

So far, we have produced one feature and a follow-up based on our research and public information requests. If you want to help us with the next leg of this investigation, we ask that you check these articles out first:

 

  • FIRE SALE PT. 1: Even for weapons dealers who have flouted state laws, there is major money to be made by selling munitions to police in Massachusetts

 

  • FIRE SALE PT. 1 ½: Digging deeper into the abyss of reckless unchecked state spending on guns and ammo

 

So, here is how you can participate …

With help from our partners at MuckRock and Document Cloud, we are posting (and will continue uploading) a variety of documents we have unearthed in our reporting process—from internal emails between vendors and state-side purchasers, to purchase orders and contracts, to policies and guidelines, to studies, to memos.

Now we need your help to sort through all this stuff. It’s not easy—for example, Mass State Police redact the descriptions and quantities of weapons it buys. But if you look through the documents, you will find the places where they forgot to black out the text. There’s juicy stuff as well—in one case, we found a state trooper mocking the attorney general in an email with a gun seller; more recently, we came across this report, in which a Fall River district attorney found that a man stunned by police there died of natural causes shortly after.

Thanks to MuckRock, we are excited to announce that you—readers, community members, reporters, anyone—can dig through all these documents along with us by simply clicking onto this portal. If there is something that you think is worth pointing out on a particular page, you can flag and annotate it on the left-hand side. If nothing piques your interest, you can skip to the next one.

 

 

We will be combing through all your notes along with ours, and updating you here at binjonline.org and on social media. We appreciate your assistance, and look forward to continuing our investigation with help from the public. For any further questions about the project, please contact BINJ Editorial Director Chris Faraone (email: fara1@binjonline.org).


READ AND ANNOTATE DOCUMENTS FROM OUR INVESTIGATION HERE

 

Thanks for reading and please consider this:

If you appreciate the work we are doing, please keep us going strong by making a tax-deductible donation to our IRS 501(c)(3) nonprofit sponsor, the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism!

BINJ not only produces longform investigative stories that it syndicates for free to community news outlets around Massachusetts but also works with dozens of emerging journalists each year to help them learn their trade while providing quality reporting to the public at large.

Now in its 10th year, BINJ has produced hundreds of hard-hitting news articles—many of which have taken critical looks at corporations, government, and major nonprofits, shedding light where it’s needed most.

BINJ punches far above its weight on an undersized budget—managing to remain a player in local news through difficult times for journalism even as it continues to provide leadership at the regional and national levels of the nonprofit news industry.

With your help BINJ can grow to become a more stable operation for the long term and continue to provide Bay State residents more quality journalism for years to come.

Or you can send us a check at the following address:

Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism

519 Somerville Ave #206

Somerville, MA 02143

Want to make a stock or in-kind donation to BINJ? Drop us an email at info@binjonline.org and we can make that happen!

Thanks for reading and please consider this:

If you appreciate the work we are doing, please keep us going strong by making a tax-deductible donation to our IRS 501(c)(3) nonprofit sponsor, the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism!

BINJ not only produces longform investigative stories that it syndicates for free to community news outlets around Massachusetts but also works with dozens of emerging journalists each year to help them learn their trade while providing quality reporting to the public at large.

Now in its 10th year, BINJ has produced hundreds of hard-hitting news articles—many of which have taken critical looks at corporations, government, and major nonprofits, shedding light where it’s needed most.

BINJ punches far above its weight on an undersized budget—managing to remain a player in local news through difficult times for journalism even as it continues to provide leadership at the regional and national levels of the nonprofit news industry.

With your help BINJ can grow to become a more stable operation for the long term and continue to provide Bay State residents more quality journalism for years to come.

Or you can send us a check at the following address:

Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism

519 Somerville Ave #206

Somerville, MA 02143

Want to make a stock or in-kind donation to BINJ? Drop us an email at info@binjonline.org and we can make that happen!

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