Introducing Collateral Damage: Ep. 1 Dirty Business: The Atlanta Narcotics Unit’s Deadly Raid on 92-Year-Old Kathryn Johnston

We're excited to share a new podcast from The Intercept called Collateral Damage. The investigative series examines the half-century-long war on drugs, its enduring ripple effects, and the devastating consequences of building a massive war machine aimed at the public itself. Hosted by Radley Balko, an investigative journalist who has been covering the drug war and the criminal justice system for more than 20 years, each episode takes an in-depth look at someone who was unjustly killed in the drug war. This is Episode One: Dirty Business.

In 2006, a 92-year-old Atlanta woman was gunned down in her own home by police during a drug raid. The police initially claimed the woman was a marijuana dealer who fired a gun at them. The story might have ended there. But an informant bravely came forward to set the record straight. Subsequent investigations and reports revealed that the police had raided the wrong home, killed an innocent woman, then planted marijuana in her basement to cover up their mistake.

In the ensuing months, we’d learn that the Atlanta Police Department’s narcotics unit routinely conducted mistaken raids on terrified people. The problem was driven by perverse federal, state, and local financial incentives that pushed cops to take shortcuts in procuring warrants for drug raids in order to boost their arrest and seizure statistics. Most of those incentives are still in place today.

The raids haven’t stopped. And neither have the deaths.

Subscribe and listen to the full series on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. New episodes every Wednesday.

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