Michele McPhee: Maximum Harm, MS-13, and Operation Mean Streets - 283

Today, Michele McPhee talks to us about her books Maximum Harm (Boston Marathon murders) and Operation Mean Streets (The threat to our schools and communities from the gang MS-13). This is episode 283 of Teaching Learning Leading K12. ( She had just presented at a state principal's conference.)

Best selling author, Emmy-nominated investigative reporter and award-winning journalist Michele McPhee has spent two decades covering terrorism, murder, mobsters, and corruption for television, newspapers and radio.

McPhee’s investigative work has led to gunpoint threats delivered by angry Boston mobsters, a frightening encounter on KKK-protected dirt roads in Arkansas, threats from gang bangers, and IRS audits. She chased Gianni Versace’s killer around South Beach, Miami; snuck into John Gotti’s wake in Queens, New York; and posed as a mob moll with an undercover NYPD detective targeting fight fixing in Las Vegas.

She was also on the ground at the scene of two terror attacks on American soil. McPhee was among the first reporters at Ground Zero when two human-filled bombs hurtled into the World Trade Center towers on September 11, 2001. She was also a witness to the carnage unleashed by two homegrown terrorists who detonated two pressure cooker bombs secreted in backpacks placed in the crowd along the finish line of the Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013 and is currently at work on a book about the FBI’s involvement with accused bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev.

McPhee is the author of five true crime books, including A Mob Story the book notorious Boston mobster Whitey Bulger had on his bookshelf at his Santa Monica hideout.

McPhee was the Boston producer for ABC News working in the Brian Ross Investigative Unit and has broken multiple national stories regarding New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez and his murderous past. She was the first reporter in the country to obtain a picture of accused bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s anti-American missive scribbled on the side of a Watertown boat where he hid for hours during a massive police manhunt. She also traveled to Montreal to interview, with Brian Ross, the world’s most sophisticated counterfeiter of US $20 bills and covered the trial of Boston mobster James “Whitey” Bulger.

McPhee was the Police Bureau Chief for the New York Daily News for nearly a decade and has covered high-profile crime cases nationally and internationally, including the death of Princess Diana.

She has been a commentator on breaking news for national programs on ABC World News, CNN; MSNBC; and the Fox News Network.

She is the recipient of many journalism awards, including the Society of the Silurian’s Feature News Award for her New York Daily News 9-11 coverage. She was awarded First Place for Serious Column in the Boston Herald by the Associated Press. Her work for ABC Boston affiliate WCVB earned her a 2012 Emmy nomination for Outstanding Investigative Reporting.

Thanks for listening!

Please remember to share and subscribe.

Connect with Michele:

http://michelemcphee.com/

https://www.newsweek.com/2018/06/22/ms-13-972406.html

Maximum Harm

https://twitter.com/MicheleMcPhee

Length - 23:46