Billey Joe Johnson Jr. was a high school football star headed for the big time. Then, early one morning in 2008, the Black teenager died during a traffic stop with a White deputy. His family’s been searching for answers ever since.

Michael Montgomery
Senior Reporter and Producer
Michael Montgomery is a senior reporter and producer for Reveal. He has led collaborations with the Associated Press, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, Frontline, KQED and others.
Previously, Montgomery was a senior reporter at American Public Media, a special correspondent for the BBC and an associate producer with CBS News. He began his career in eastern Europe, covering the fall of communism and wars in former Yugoslavia for the Daily Telegraph and Los Angeles Times. His investigations into human rights abuses in the Balkans led to the arrest and conviction of Serbian and Albanian paramilitaries and creation of a new war crimes court based in The Hague. Montgomery’s honors include Murrow, Peabody, IRE, duPont, Third Coast and Overseas Press Club awards. He is based in Reveal’s Emeryville, California, office.
The Great Arizona Water Grab
A surprising group of investors is fueling a global scramble for water in the most unlikely of places – the Arizona desert. As wells run dry, there’s a race for profits.
Weapons With Minds of Their Own
The future of warfare is being shaped by computer algorithms that are assuming ever-greater control over battlefield technology. Will this give machines the power to decide whom to kill?
The COVID Tracking Project Part 3
The final episode of our three-part series takes listeners inside the failed federal response to COVID-19 and explores the massive volunteer effort to collect data about the disease.
The COVID Tracking Project Part 2
Part two of our three-part series takes listeners inside the failed federal response to COVID-19 and explores the massive volunteer effort to collect data about the disease.
The COVID Tracking Project Part 1
This three-part series takes listeners inside the failed federal response to COVID-19 and explores the massive volunteer effort to collect data about the disease.
Listening in on Russia’s War in Ukraine
Secretly intercepted phone calls from Russian soldiers in Ukraine reveal how fear and propaganda fueled Russia’s violence against its neighbor.
Locked Up: The Prison Labor That Built Business Empires
Companies across the South profited off the forced labor of people in prison after the Civil War – a racist system known as convict leasing.
The Bitter Work Behind Sugar
On a vast plantation in the Dominican Republic, Haitian migrants still use machetes to harvest sugarcane that’s exported to the U.S. The workers are protesting poor working and living conditions.
A Reckoning at Amazon
Who is shipping out all those holiday season packages? As Amazon has made huge profits, their worker injury rates are higher than other companies.