The State We're In, 29 October 2011. A New Orleans cop tries to clean up a dirty police force from the inside. A Peruvian priest leads farmers in their protest against a multinational mining corporation - and wins. A budding lawyer in Toronto gets picked up by the police for a crime he never committed. And a man in Nevada helps out a stranger lying in the middle of the road and years later nearly inherits $150 million.
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Roland Doucette was a policeman in New Orleans and patrolled some of the roughest neighbourhoods in America.
Yet he found a way to help reduce crime by over 90 percent in some of them.
He tells host Jonathan Groubert how he did it without weapons or arrests.
More on New Orleans from The State We're In - New Orleans Beat.
Father Marco Arana in Peru led Quechua Indians in a protest against a gold mining company, which was backed by the Peruvian government.
Despite overwhelming odds, they succeeded in stopping the mine. But they also started getting threats.
And then they uncovered a massive spy ring, which had been following - and murdering - protestors.
The Devil Operation is a documentary film by Stephanie Boyd.
More photos from the film below.
David Layton was just starting his career as a criminal defence lawyer in Toronto, Canada when the police stopped him on the street.
They accused him of wielding a knife at women in a nearby shopping centre.
He explained that he was going to his office, but they put him in a patrol car and drove him to the mall where victims would have the chance to identify him.
That moment still inspires David in the work he does.
In December of 1967, miner Melvin Earl Dummar was driving down a desert road in Nevada when he saw a man lying in the road.
Melvin rescued the man who turned out, he says, to be billionaire tycoon Howard Hughes (pictured below).
Then in 1976, Melvin received a handwritten will, apparently penned by Hughes himself – and Melvin stood to inherit over $150 million. The dispute over the will’s authenticity changed Melvin’s life forever.
Originally produced for Love & Radio by Ben Bombard and Nick van der Kolk. Edited by Nick van der Kolk and Rehman Tungekar, and special help from John Barth, Brendan Baker, Melba Lara, and Robin Amer.
Click to hear a longer version of 'The Man in the Road' from Love & Radio.
Click image for slideshow - use arrows to scroll
![Howard Hughes "standing in front of his new Boeing Army Pursuit Plane" in Inglewood, California in the 1940s.<br>© Photo: Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Howard_Hughes.jpg](http://cdn.radionetherlands.nl/data/files/imagecache/rnw_slideshow/howard_hughes-wider.jpg "Howard Hughes "standing in front of his new Boeing Army Pursuit Plane" in Inglew")
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Story on Howard Hughes was fascinating...a lot of unanswered questions. In the end, what happened to Howard Hughes' money? Was it distributed to hte Morman chuch?
Hi Colin,
Thanks for writing. We asked Nick van der Kolk, the piece's producer to respond to your query. Nick said, "Hughes' estate was divided amongst his family--although there have been lawsuits since to figure out just who qualifies as a part of his family. The Mormon church, along with the rest of those named in the will (other than family members), received nothing."
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