Rob Picheta

🚨 BREAKING NEWS (for one last time) 🚨 I'm leaving @CNN's international news team after seven ridiculous, exciting, historic years. And I'm really excited to tell you why: I'm joining our US-based Enterprise team, where I'll be writing long-form stories for our website. 🧵

My full long read on the downfall of Hanceville’s police department is live on CNN. I tried to tell the story of a town, not just the scandal that has come to define it. You can read it here: cnn.com/2026/02/07/us/…

I’m very grateful to everyone who spoke with me over the past months, and who met with me during my time in Hanceville. And I’m in awe of Elijah Nouvelage’s stunning photos, which you saw throughout this thread.

An Alabama police dispatcher died at his desk. His body was undiscovered, in a building full of cops, for nearly 24 hours. Then all hell broke loose. My latest investigation is about a small town and the policing scandal that threatens to tear it apart. 🧵

@jaktv That's very kind, thank you

@robpicheta amazingly well-written article about the corrupt police force of Hanceville, Alabama by a true journalist. It was such a pleasure to read this and gives me hope that journalism isn’t actually dead. cnn.com/2026/02/07/us/…

You can read my full investigation into Patriot Front, and their 124-acre Tennessee compound, at this link: cnn.com/2025/12/15/us/…

The Tennessee compound gives Patriot Front a key base from which to network, train and grow. “When an extremist group purchases property and starts creating a meeting place … we call those insular communities, and those are particularly worrisome,” Daryl Johnson, who warned of the threat of domestic extremism in a landmark 2009 report, told CNN. “It’s a next phase (in) becoming more radical and hardline, because you’re creating a meeting space that’s private, that’s isolated, where people can come (and) do pretty much whatever they want.”

Patriot Front are one of the most active White supremacist groups in the US. And now, they're building a secretive compound in eastern Tennessee, where they're training new recruits. My investigation into that base was published today. Here's what I found... 🧵