MOSCOW (AP) — Prominent Russian opposition figure Boris Nemtsov’s killing follows the slaying over the past decade of several other high-profile critics of President Vladimir Putin and his policies. Here is a look at some of the best-known cases.

1. ANNA POLITKOVSKAYA

Renowned journalist Anna Politkovskaya, 48, was fatally shot in the elevator of her Moscow apartment building in October 2006. Her work in the Novaya Gazeta newspaper was sharply critical of Kremlin policies in Chechnya and of human rights violations there.

Last year, a court convicted five men, most of them Chechens, of involvement in the murder. However, Russia’s Investigative Committee has said it is still trying to determine who ordered the killing.

Anna Politkovskaya during a book fair in Leipzig, Germany, March 17, 2005. (JENS SCHLUETER/AFP/Getty Images)

2. ALEXANDER LITVINENKO

Former Russian intelligence officer Alexander Litvinenko, 44, became sick after drinking tea laced with radioactive polonium-210 at a London hotel in November 2006 and died three weeks later. Litvinenko had fallen out with the Russian government and became a strong critic of the Kremlin, obtaining political asylum after coming to Britain in 2000.

Two weeks before he was poisoned, Litvinenko blamed Putin for the murder of Politkovskaya. Before he died, he signed a statement blaming Putin for his poisoning.

British police have named two Russian men, former KGB agent Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun, as prime suspects. They deny involvement, and Russia refused to extradite them. An inquiry in Britain is now examining the circumstances of Litvinenko’s death.

Alexander Litvinenko in intensive care at University College Hospital, London, Nov. 20, 2006. (Natasja Weitsz/Getty Images)

3. STANISLAV MARKELOV

Stanislav Markelov, a human rights lawyer, was shot after leaving a news conference less than half a mile from the Kremlin in January 2009. Markelov, 34, was appealing the early release of Yuri Budanov, a Russian military officer convicted of killing a young Chechen woman. A journalist walking with Markelov, Anastasia Baburova, also died in the attack. A Russian nationalist extremist was sentenced to life in prison for the killings.

A woman places flowers at the site where pot where Stanislav Markelov and Anastasiya Baburova were killed, Moscow, Jan. 20, 2009. (Alexey SAZONOV/AFP/Getty Images)

4. NATALYA ESTEMIROVA

Human rights activist Natalya Estemirova, 50, was abducted in Chechnya in July 2009 and found shot dead the same day. One of Chechnya’s best known rights activists, Estemirova headed the Memorial group’s Chechen branch and exposed alleged abuses by the forces of Kremlin-backed Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov.

Russian investigators said in 2010 that two brothers who were members of an Islamic militant group killed Estemirova, who had implicated them in kidnappings of Chechen civilians. Memorial said DNA evidence showed that the two men — one of whom was killed in 2009 and the other granted asylum in France — didn’t commit the crime.

People hold portraits of Natalya Estemirova during a rally in Moscow, July 16, 2009. (AP Photo/Sergey Ponomarev)

5. BORIS NEMTSOV

Boris Nemtsov, 55, who served as a deputy prime minister in the 1990s and became a prominent opposition figure under Putin, was gunned down in Moscow on Friday night. The killing came a few hours after he denounced Putin’s “mad, aggressive” policies and the day before he was to help lead a rally protesting Russia’s actions in the Ukraine crisis and the economic crisis at home.

Russia’s top investigative body said it is looking into several possible motives including an attempt to destabilize the state, Islamic extremism, the conflict in Ukraine and his personal life.

Boris Nemtsov speaks at a protest against alleged vote rigging in Russian elections, Moscow, Dec. 24, 2011. (AP Photo/Misha Japaridze)

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MIDDLETOWN, Conn. (AP) — As drug overdoses left two Wesleyan students fighting for their lives, witnesses helped investigators quickly identify the suspects: The drug-dealing was an open secret, according to court documents, even as the university has gotten tougher on drug violations.

The club-drug overdoses, which sent a total of 12 people to hospitals, are likely to bring more scrutiny to drug policies on college campuses, including Wesleyan’s, which have wrestled with how to approach enforcement and when to involve local police.

“I think it will force schools to examine their policies,” said state Rep. Matthew Lesser, a member of the Wesleyan class of 2005 whose district includes the Middletown campus. “It forces us to look at what we can do to make sure students are safe.”

Four students have been arrested in connection with last weekend’s overdoses, which left two students in critical condition. Authorities say the drug was presented as Molly, a popular name for the euphoria-inducing stimulant MDMA, but was likely cut with other designer drugs.

As on other campuses, the unlawful use and distribution of illicit drugs is prohibited at Wesleyan, but the issue is often complicated by a desire to treat substance abuse as a health issue first and what some describe as society’s ambivalence about the use of certain drugs.

Tucker Andersen, a Wesleyan trustee, said the administration has been very thoughtful and tried to balance all the issues involved.

“This is an issue where there is no disagreement on the board. You want a policy which keeps students safe. You don’t want them to experiment with all this sort of stuff,” Andersen said. “You want to get the message out loud and clear that nobody in a position of authority is in favor of addictive and dangerous substances, but that doesn’t mean you have to close your eyes to that it’s going to occur anyway.”

The school referred 154 students for disciplinary action on drug violations in 2011 but that number jumped to 281 in 2012, according to data reported to the U.S. Education Department. There were 240 students disciplined in 2013 on the campus of 3,200.

“At Wesleyan, we don’t sweep these problems under the rug,” Dean Michael Whaley said.

University President Michael Roth told the campus newspaper, The Wesleyan Argus, he does not anticipate major changes to drug policies that have been effective in “trying to point students toward making responsible choices, not overly policing them, while at the same time putting up pretty clear guardrails.” An interview request from The Associated Press was denied.

A spokeswoman for Middletown police, Lt. Heather Desmond, said Wesleyan has been more “forthright” in recent years about involving them in drug cases. Still, she said there are cases of drug-related illnesses on campus that involve emergency medical responders, but not police.

Dispatchers sent police to campus to aid with the response to a 19-year-old woman who became ill after taking Molly on Sept. 13, the second of two consecutive weekends in which Wesleyan students were hospitalized after taking the drug. Desmond said police did not follow up, likely because it would be difficult to pursue a case involving an intoxicated woman who took a single pill. Wesleyan health officials alerted students to the hospitalizations in an all-campus email that urged them to be aware of the drug’s effects and potential side-effects.

As students began getting sick on the morning of Feb. 22, a witness told Wesleyan public safety that they bought what they thought was Molly from one of the four defendants in September, took half the pill and had a reaction similar to the students involved in latest incident. Information from students, the dean’s office and public safety sources led police to the suspects, including two who were known to sell Molly from their residences, according to arrest warrants.

The family of the only victim still in the hospital said Friday night that “against all odds” the student would survive.

In his recent Oscar acceptance speech John Legend gave light to the impact of mass incarceration on America by stating “We live in the most incarcerated country in the world. There are more black men under correctional control today than were under slavery in 1850.” By saying this while accepting an Oscar award for the film Selma, he connected mass incarceration to the Civil Rights movement in a single statement, finally allowing the issue of U.S. imprisonment to be seen for its true tragedy.

Through art Legend’s words brought politics front and center to the Oscar stage in a way that has been missing from the American dialogue since the days of Harry Belafonte, Sidney Poitier and other activist. To give more context to the gravity of the problem he spoke to, I recently wrote the piece “The Black Male Incarceration Problem Is Real and It’s Catastrophic” and stated “there are more African American men incarcerated in the U.S. than the total prison populations in India, Argentina, Canada, Lebanon, Japan, Germany, Finland, Israel and England combined.” These 9 countries in total represent over 1.5 billion people, in contrast there are a mere 18.5 million black males in the United States.

The epicenter of the incarceration era Legend referenced roots itself in the crack cocaine epidemic, and mandatory sentencing laws that followed. Yet, to truly look at the era of mass incarceration following the implementation of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, we must dig deeper than Gary Webb’s accusations in Dark Alliance the expose that brought to light the CIA’s involvement in cocaine trafficking. Only by looking at the United States of America with honest eyes, being cognizant of cycles of actions, can we see Gary’s tangled web for its true light. Through this analysis we are lead to a larger understanding of black America’s historical arch in the United States, and a deeper view into how it weaves into the fabric of present day realities. Those realities include the stories of Eric Garner, Mike Brown and so many others that have dealt with the secondary consequences of mass incarceration’s hold on our country.

Over the past three years I have taken on the task of delving into the War on Drugs & Iran Contra Scandal as one of the producers of the film “Freeway Crack in the System” along with Emmy award winning director Marc Levin. Our film will premiere on Al Jazeera this Sunday March 1st, and will be shown in Selma, Alabama as a featured part of the Jubilee Film Festival March 8th. Crack in the System is an in-depth detail into how our nation followed this path toward the incarceration of so many in such a short period of time. As a former prosecutor, I have seen the system up close and understand its impact on lives. In this film, we journeyed from the epicenter of the crack epidemic in South Central Los Angeles to the Nicaraguan City that started the domino effect that led to America’s cocaine explosion. The connection between the two cities was an administration headed by President Ronald Reagan that with one hand turned a blind eye to Nicaraguan drug suppliers trafficking large scale cocaine in the United States, and with the other reformed the American incarceration landscape with the implementation of harsh crack cocaine sentencing for American citizens who bought and sold some of the same drugs far down the supply line. All of this was done while the government contemporaneously allowed for the privatization of U.S. prisons that would hold this flood of new inmates.

Crack in the System’s goal is simply to dig deeper, supply more facts, and provide the definitive story. We accomplished this by interviewing several individuals never seen on camera before speaking about the realities of their involvement with the reach of the contra scandal and cocaine epidemic. This documentary frames the picture of how it all happened. The characters we questioned ranged from Rick Ross the kingpin at the heart of the urban crack epidemic, to Julio Zavala the high ranking Nicaraguan drug seller in the center of the infamous Frogman case out of San Francisco that started all the investigations into illicit CIA activity, to Coral Baca (played by Paz Vega in To Kill the Messenger”) who laid out the evidence of the U.S. government’s involvement in the drug trade for Gary Webb. We even have a former Los Angeles County Sheriff who speaks to stealing drugs and money off of black defendants, and lastly a lawmaker Eric Sterling one of the drafters of the Anti Drug Abuse act of 1986, who apologizes on camera for writing some of the most draconian prison sentences ever created for a nonviolent drug offense.

“I knew that these laws were a mistake when we were writing them…There is no question that there are tens of thousands of black people in prison serving sentences that are decades excessive…Their families have been destroyed because of laws I played a central role in writing.” Eric Sterling Drafter 1986 Anti-drug Abuse Act

According to Sterling these laws were written based on a hysteria created by crack cocaine’s imagery in media. Furthermore, he had not seen a law prior, or since, implemented in such a way. Police agencies were not surveyed, drug scientists were not consulted, this was not a law that was guided by logic. Young blacks were convicted and sentenced based on emotion and fear.

The economic backdrop that set this in motion cannot be ignored. Throughout the two terms of Reagan’s presidency, economic advancement declined in urban centers across the country. Decreased access to job opportunities as a result of globalization moving manufacturing jobs to international markets, limited availability of government programs and an implementation of trickle-down economics by Reagan hit African Americans with a devastating impact. Ronald Reagan represented an ethos of small government that led to massive cuts in support that were foundational to the development of a post civil rights black America.

With the election of Ronald Reagan as president in 1980, the new conservative administration quickly moved to reduce federal government spending on urban development and social services. The Reagan Administration terminated the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act program, a successful job training program that had been funded in 1982 at $3.1 billion; eliminated $2 billion from the federal food stamps program; reduced federal support for child nutrition programs by $1.7 billion over a two-year period; and closed down the Neighborhood Self Help and Planning Assistance programs, which provided technical and financial help to inner cities. In the first year of the Reagan Administration, the real median income of all black families fell by 5.2 percent. The number of Americans living below the federal government’s poverty line grew by over two million in a single year. In 1982, over 30 percent of the total black labor force was jobless at some period during that year. In June 1982, Congress reduced federal assistance programs by 20 percent and cut federal assistance to state and municipal governments. Social and Economic Issues of the 1980s and 1990s amistadresource.org

When these programs were cut African Americans in dire need of assistance because of historical disenfranchisement were left without resources. As a result a largely black societal underbelly developed in cities across America. In addition, trickle-down economics coupled itself with local level privatization movements creating a sandwich effect, with federal program and benefit cuts squeezing from the top, and local level privatization legislation squeezing from the bottom. By contracting out public sector jobs many of the Affirmative Action gains that resulted from the Civil Rights movement could be circumvented. New local level privatization movements took form across the country to take advantage of the new strategy. Professor William Jones of University of Wisconsin wrote about this in his piece titled “The Infrastructure of South-Central Los Angeles”: Unions, Public Service and the New Black Middle Class”

In July, 1981, Los Angeles City Councilmen … proposed contracting garbage collection in the city to private firms, which paid their workers as much as four dollars per hour less than city employees. This was the largest in a series of privatization plans … proposed since 1978, when local voters approved ballot measures allowing city and county officials to outsource public services … Local officials had contracted out maintenance at the city Coliseum and food service at county juvenile facilities, and were considering proposals for street resurfacing and laundry at county hospitals … By the 1950s, African Americans and recent immigrants had established near monopolies on sanitation and other low-wage service jobs such as custodial, food service, non-professional health and child care … Union activists complained of a “racist purge of black employees” after governor Ronald Reagan contracted data processing in the state health system to a private contractor in 1969, resulting in the lay-off of half the African American employees in the operations department. When Los Angeles started privatizing food service, janitorial, security and laundry services in the 1970s, SEIU activists pointed out that ninety-five percent of the workers in those services were African American or Latino.

The combination of the aforementioned factors laid the economic brush that allowed for the crack era to set fire in Los Angeles and other urban centers across the country. By the end of the 1980’s, all of black America would feel the brunt of its burn.

When Legend performed Glory and spoke to the issue of imprisonment amidst the celebration of his historic Oscar win, he brought the issue of mass incarceration front and center. His message pointed out the cracks in the system that work against our great democracy functioning fairly for all. Just as Martin Luther King jr. had done in Selma, Alabama 50 years prior, Legend set a issue of injustice on all of our kitchen tables to be dealt with by action. It is now up to each of us to answer the call and begin to act on the issue, as so many answered the call of civil injustices before us.

“One day, when the glory comes – It will be ours, it will be ours – Oh, one day, when the war is won – We will be sure, we will be here sure – Oh, glory” Glory – Selma

Freeway Crack in the System is scheduled to be the featured closing for the Jubilee Film Festival March 8th. The film is scheduled to be shown after a bridge crossing reenactment in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the civil rights protest that occurred in Selma, Alabama. President Barack Obama is scheduled to speak in Selma, Alabama to commemorate the monumental moment in history.