 Penguin Random House Audio presents. We own this city. A true story of crime, cops, and corruption. By Justin Fenton. Read for you. By Dion Graham. 1. Windup. Chapter 1. Knockers. The letter arrived in the chambers of a federal judge in Baltimore in the summer of 2017. It had been sent from the McDowell Federal Correctional Institution, which was nestled in the middle of nowhere, West Virginia, more than six hours from Baltimore. On the front of the envelope, the inmate had written Special Mail. Umar Burley had written his letter on lined notebook paper in neat bouncy print, using tildas to top his tees. Burley, inmate number 43787-037, was reaching out to the judge for a second time, begging for a court-appointed lawyer. His attorney had retired, and attempts to reach another had gone unanswered. Could you imagine how hard it is to be here for a crime I didn't commit and struggling to find clarity and justice on my own? Burley wrote. Months earlier, Burley had been in the recreation hall of a federal prison in Oklahoma, awaiting transportation to McDowell when someone called to him, little Baltimore, little Baltimore, did you see that? News from home flashed across the television screen. A group of eight Baltimore police officers had been charged with stealing from citizens and lying about their cases. The officers had carried out their alleged crimes undeterred by the fact that the police department was at the time under a broad civil rights investigation following the death of a young black man from injuries sustained while in police custody. The revelations were breathtaking, though not entirely unbelievable. For years, accusations of misconduct, from illegal strip searches to broken bones, had been leveled against city police. But many claims lacked hard proof and came from people with long rap sheets and every incentive to level a false accusation. Such toss-ups tended to go in favor of the cops. With the decks so stacked against them, most victims didn't even bother to speak up. Often, they did have drugs or guns, and the fact that the cops lied about the details of the encounter or took some of the seized money for themselves, well, in Baltimore, it was a dirty game in which the ends justified the means. But now a wiretap case, back home, was shining a light on the culture of the force, and the federal prosecutors who brought the charges were looking for more victims, and whom our Burley had a story to tell. Burley's story begins on the morning of April 28, 2010. Years of a plain-clothes police squad had been summoned for an ad hoc roll call on the street. Sample complete. Ready to continue?