Nov. 21st will be the 10th anniversary of the most shocking, unconscionable police shootings I have ever written about. Officers from the drug task for of the Atlanta Police Department burst into the home of 92-year old Kathryn Johnston and gunned her down. It ripped the lid off massive police misconduct and brutality by that department.





Johnston lived in a bad neighborhood. She kept bars on her windows and doors and she had an old revolver for protection. When undercover officers burst into her house with a no-knock warrant, she grabbed the revolver and fired a few shots, hitting no one. The officers emptied their guns, firing 39 times and hitting her 5 times. The warrant was for a drug search, but there were no drugs there. So they handcuffed the still-alive Johnston and left her laying on the floor while they planted drugs in the house. She died bleeding on the floor while they framed her.

An investigation found that the warrant they had was procured with a coerced affidavit from a confidential informant that he had bought crack at that house. They told him if he didn’t sign it, they’d plant drugs on him and arrest him. After the murder of Johnston, the informant went public and said that he never bought drugs there and was coerced into saying he had. During the investigation and subsequent trials, it was revealed that the officers carried drugs in the trunks of their squad cars to plant on people to coerce them into signing affidavits. Two of the officers admitted that this was “routine” in the entire department.

It’s one of the most appalling cases of police brutality and misconduct imaginable, but it’s hardly unusual. One thing that has gotten far too little attention is how the war on drugs has corrupted our law enforcement agencies. We’ve seen many cases where the police were more interested in shaking down dealers, getting a cut of their profits in lieu of arresting them. We’ve seen officers, prosecutors and judges bribed or threatened. We’ve seen how asset forfeiture is used as a slush fund by many police departments.

On the 10th anniversary of this horrifying tragedy, let’s redouble our efforts at serious reform of our criminal justice system, which is absolutely broken and corrupted from top to bottom.