Episode 3: The SAINTS of Salem

Salem police in the 1990s began to crack down on drug users. At times, their efforts turned deadly, and regularly targeted people of color in the mostly white city. Fatal police shootings led to the formation of a police oversight board that the head of the police union, Det. Craig Stoelk, opposed. Stoelk’s critics say this time period revealed his personal biases, and raise questions about how he investigated Harriet Thompson’s murder.

Hush is an investigative podcast from OPB, uncovering the buried truth about critical stories in the Pacific Northwest. In the first season, we look at the case of Jesse Lee Johnson, a Black man who lived for 17 years on Oregon’s death row for a crime he says he didn’t commit, and we try to understand why the state tried for so long to kill him.