Ep. 1: Autopsy No. 86-999

[Contains explicit content] The series begins with the deaths of two young black men. First, Freddie Gray, who died after police arrested him and threw him into the back of a police van in Baltimore. Then, Len Bias: the rising college basketball player. His cocaine overdose in 1986 helped ignite a new, more aggressive phase of the War On Drugs, one that zeroed in on crack cocaine and black communities. This episode looks at the ties between the two deaths, and how the draconian, anti-crack drug laws of the mid-80s, set policing in America on the course of lethal aggression against black Americans we’re still witnessing today.