Richard Franklin Lennox Thomas Pryor Sr. was an American stand-up comedian and actor. He reached a broad audience with his trenchant observations and storytelling style, and is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most important stand-up comedians of all time. Pryor won a Primetime Emmy Award and five Grammy Awards. He received the first Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 1998. He won the Writers Guild of America Award in 1974. He was listed at number one on Comedy Central's list of all-time greatest stand-up comedians. In 2017, Rolling Stone ranked him first on its list of the 50 best stand-up comics of all time.
Gary Stephen Webb was an American investigative journalist.
The Supreme Team was an organized crime syndicate that operated throughout the 1980s in New York City. Their headquarters was the Baisley Park Projects, in South Jamaica, Queens, New York City, New York. The leaders were Kenneth "Supreme" McGriff and his nephew, Gerald "Prince" Miller. In 1989, McGriff spent 10 years in a federal prison for a narcotics conviction.
Bad Lieutenant is a 1992 American crime film directed by Abel Ferrara. The film stars Harvey Keitel as the title character "bad lieutenant" as well as Victor Argo and Paul Calderón. The screenplay was co-written by Ferrara with actress-model Zoë Lund, both of whom appear in the film in minor roles. The film was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1992 Cannes Film Festival.
David Ruffin was an American soul singer most famous for his work as one of the lead singers of the Temptations (1964–1968) during the group's "Classic Five" period as it was later known. Ruffin was the lead voice on such famous songs as "My Girl" and "Ain't Too Proud to Beg." He later scored two top-ten singles as a solo artist, "My Whole World Ended " and "Walk Away from Love."
The Temptations is a four-hour television miniseries broadcast in two-hour halves on NBC, based upon the history of one of Motown's longest-lived acts, The Temptations. Executive produced by former Motown executive Suzanne de Passe, produced by Otis Williams and Temptations manager Shelley Berger, and based upon Williams’ Temptations autobiography, the miniseries was originally broadcast on November 1 and November 2, 1998. It was filmed on location in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the spring of 1998. Allan Arkush directed the miniseries.
A number of writers have alleged that the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was involved in the Nicaraguan Contras' cocaine trafficking operations during the 1980s Nicaraguan civil war. These claims have led to investigations by the United States government, including hearings and reports by the United States House of Representatives, Senate, Department of Justice, and the CIA's Office of the Inspector General which ultimately concluded the allegations were unsupported. The subject remains controversial.
The crack epidemic was a surge of crack cocaine use in major cities across the United States throughout the entirety of the 1980s and the early 1990s. This resulted in a number of social consequences, such as increasing crime and violence in American inner city neighborhoods, a resulting backlash in the form of tough on crime policies, and a massive spike in incarceration rates.
"The Sniffing Accountant" is the 68th episode of the sitcom Seinfeld, being the fourth episode of the series' fifth season. It aired on NBC on October 7, 1993.
The Wonderland Gang was a group of drug dealers involved in the Los Angeles cocaine trade during the late 1970s and early 1980s; their home base was located on Wonderland Avenue in the Laurel Canyon neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. On July 1, 1981, three members and one associate of the gang died in the Wonderland murders.
Banged Up Abroad is a British documentary/docudrama television series created by Bart Layton that was produced for Channel 5 and that premiered in March 2006. Most episodes feature stories of people who have been arrested while travelling abroad, usually for trying to smuggle illegal drugs, although some episodes feature people who were either kidnapped or captured while they were either travelling or living in other countries. Some episodes have featured real-life stories that first became well known when they were made the subject of a film: films that have been 're-made' in this way include Midnight Express, Goodfellas, The Devil's Double, Argo, Mr Nice and, to a lesser extent, Casino. A few episodes have focused on undercover infiltrations of criminal syndicates by law enforcement agents or individuals recruited by them.
The Bridge to Nowhere is an independent 2009 crime drama written by Christopher Gutierrez, directed by Blair Underwood in his directorial debut.
Apocalipsur is a 2005 Colombian drama film written and directed by Javier Mejía Osorio. It won the National Film Announcement of the Colombian Ministry of Culture in 2002. The film was chosen as the best film at the Cartagena Film Festival in 2007.
Michael "Mickey" DeBatt was a Gambino crime family mob associate who was involved in the gangland slaying of drug trafficker Frank Fiala.
The Return of Superfly is a 1990 American crime drama film directed by Sig Shore. The film is a sequel to the 1973 film Super Fly T.N.T.. It stars Nathan Purdee as Youngblood Priest and Margaret Avery.
The Sitter is a 2011 American black comedy film directed by David Gordon Green and written by Brian Gatewood and Alessandro Tanaka. The film follows a slacker college student who, after being suspended, is forced by his mother to fill in for a babysitter that called in sick. During this time, he takes his charges along for his extensive criminal escapades.
In May 2013, the American website Gawker and the Toronto Star reported that they had viewed a cellphone video that showed then-Mayor of Toronto Rob Ford smoking crack cocaine and commenting on political issues. Gawker raised money to buy the video, but were unable to acquire it when the seller broke off contact. On October 31, 2013, the Toronto Police Service announced that they were in possession of the video, "and at least one other". The video was retrieved in the course of an investigation of drug gangs, entitled "Project Traveller". Ford's associate Alexander "Sandro" Lisi was charged with extortion for attempting to retrieve the video, in exchange for marijuana.
Cocaine: One Man's Seduction is a 1983 American drama television film directed by Paul Wendkos, starring Dennis Weaver as a real estate agent who gets addicted to cocaine.
Edson Da Costa was a 25-year-old Black Portuguese man who died on 21 June 2017 after being stopped by police on 15 June in Beckton, London. The unclear circumstances of his death led to protests. In June 2019, an inquest jury found that Da Costa died by misadventure from the consequences of a cardiorespiratory arrest after he placed in his mouth a plastic bag containing 88 wraps of class A drugs. The coroner ruled that there was no "legal or factual basis" for a conclusion that could be critical of the police. An investigation by the Independent Office for Police Conduct concluded that the restraint by officers was necessary and proportionate.
