The Real Story
The astonishing but true story of White Boy Rick Wershe is an example of why the War on Drugs has been a trillion-dollar policy failure for nearly half a century.
The tale of a boy recruited by the FBI—at age 14—to be a paid informant against a politically-connected drug gang is so amazing it inspired a Hollywood film starring Matthew McConaughey as White Boy Rick’s father.
Prisoner of War answers the question: What kind of father would take FBI cash to let his youngest child be an undercover operative in the murderous drug underworld?
A Dysfunctional Family
Furthermore, Rick Wershe, Jr. was a street-savvy Detroit white kid in a dysfunctional family. His mother fled an abusive marriage, leaving her children behind. Rick raised himself. He didn’t do drugs, but he knew important people in the narcotics underworld. The FBI had him infiltrate a powerful black drug gang with City Hall connections. Rick did a good job. Too good. He became a key witness in a homicide. It involved top-level police corruption which blocked the investigation of the drug gang’s killing of a little boy. White Boy Rick’s FBI work caused shock waves that went to the very top of the Justice Department. The FBI abandoned him and local narcs snared him in a drug case that carried a life prison sentence. Rick Wershe, a kid recruit, became a Prisoner of War in the War on Drugs.
Real Interviews
Most of all, Prisoner of War is based on interviews with Rick Wershe, his family, FBI agents, police officials, plus reviews of court records, investigative files and Congressional testimony. Therefore, it explores:
- The nation’s long, losing policy in the War on Drugs.
- How CIA pressure in a Detroit drug case demonstrated government hypocrisy in the War on Drugs.
- Blatantly false prosecution accusations and felonious police “testilying.”
- How the FBI committed crimes by falsifying their files about White Boy Rick.
- The racist history of the War on Drugs, dating back to the 1800s.
- How black activists were the first to demand a war on drugs.
- How the cocaine death of basketball star Len Bias led to mass incarceration for a generation.
- Why the Justice Department sometimes refuses to prosecute the drug corruption of the politically powerful.
- How sloppy reporting in herd journalism influences criminal justice.
Order a copy of Prisoner of War and explore the appalling truth from the trenches of the War on Drugs.
References:
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The Flag and the Cross: White Christian Nationalism and the Threat to American Democracy