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[19] The series was published in The Mercury News in three parts, from Sunday, 18 August 1996 to 20 August 1996, with a first long article and one or two shorter articles appearing each day. [5], After high school, Webb attended an Indianapolis community college on a scholarship until his family moved to Cincinnati. After a local newspaper reported that Webb had died from multiple gunshots, the coroner's office received so many calls asking about Webb's death that Sacramento County Coroner Robert Lyons issued a statement confirming Webb had died by suicide. Begun 1996, the divorce and battle over cash of Grammy winner Jimmy Webb age 75, father of six, wed 22 years to Patsy, 64, daughter of late actor Barry Sullivan is getting longer. Look at the way the US press reports on Iraq. In the final few months of his life, Bell says, Webb became increasingly withdrawn. According to a description of Webb's injuries in the Los Angeles Times, he shot himself with a .38 revolver, which he placed near his right ear. Born January 3rd, 1943 in Montreal, Quebec, he was the son of the late John Douglas Webb and the late Jeannie (Penny) Hardie Penman. [32], The New York Times published two articles on the series in mid-October, both written by reporter Tim Golden. Working in San Jose would have meant daily contact with what Bell describes as "people he did not want to be with". [8] In 1979, Webb married Susan Bell; the couple eventually had three children. reports. In 1997 Ceppos was awarded the US Society of Professional Journalists' National Ethics Award. At the end of March, Ceppos told Webb that he was going to present the internal review findings in a column. He was a writer, known for Kill the Messenger (2014), Filming in Georgia (2015) and Crack in America (2015). We had been here before." Poor Gary Webb. Ricky Donnell "Freeway Rick" Ross (born January 26, 1960) is an American author and convicted drug trafficker best known for the drug empire he established in Los Angeles, California, in the early to mid 1980s. He accepted Christ at an early age. Born in Corona, California, son of a conservatively minded Marine, he met Bell, whose father was a university lecturer, at high school in Indianapolis. His career ended, his livelihood was destroyed and certain games were started to be . Cooper and Mariah were engaged before they finally tied the knot. Celebrezze eventually sued the Plain Dealer and won an undisclosed out of court settlement. It found that CIA officials ignored information about possible Contra drug dealing; that they continued to work with Contra supporters despite allegations that they were trafficking drugs, and further asserted that officials from the CIA instructed Drug Enforcement Agency officers to refrain from investigating alleged dealers connected with the Contras. The second volume, "The Contra Story," was issued in a classified version on April 27, 1998, and in an unclassified version on October 8, 1998. Gary Stephen Webb (August 31, 1955 December 10, 2004) was an American investigative journalist. "[38], Surprised by The Washington Post article, The Mercury News's executive editor Jerome Ceppos wrote to the Post defending the series. The response from the American press took two months to arrive. [61] According to the report, it used Webb's reporting and writing as "key resources in focusing and refining the investigation." Blandn and Meneses were Nicaraguans who smuggled drugs into the U.S. and supplied dealers like Ross. "I had to warn Gary that what he was looking at was probably true, but that he would run very big risks," Parry recalls. Webb put in a call to Robert Parry. The film broadened the debate which led to the decriminalisation of . Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in, Find your bookmarks in your Independent Premium section, under my profile. Gary was preceded in death by his mother and father, Donna and James Webb of Carpentersville. But, Ceppos wrote, the series "did not meet our standards" in four areas. After Ceppos' column, The Mercury News spent the next several months conducting an internal review of the story. But the tragedy had a deeper meaning. Gary Webb, Into the Buzzsaw, CH 13, Prometheus Books. Regarding issues raised in the series's shorter sidebar stories, it found that some in the government were "not eager" to have DEA agent Celerino Castillo "openly probe" activities at Ilopango Airport in El Salvador, where covert operations in support of the Contras were undertaken, and that the CIA had indeed intervened in a case involving smuggler Julio Zavala. The story they printed was just awful. If you work through friendly reporters on major newspapers, it comes off as The New York Times saying it and not a mouthpiece of the CIA. "As a PhD student, McCoy went to Vietnam and built an absolutely damning case about the CIA's involvement with trafficking heroin. The second article described Blandn's background and how he began smuggling cocaine to support the Contras. "He was sleeping more, he hated to get up in the morning, he started having a lot of motorcycle. "I am scared," the voice replies. Webb's condition exacerbated his natural recklessness. When they married, she was aged just 21. But ultimately, the responsibility was, and is, mine.". By: E&P Staff The death of investigative reporter Gary Webb has been confirmed as a suicide, according to a coroner's statement. Actor Jeremy Renner portrays Webb.[83]. Webb came home and put his belongings in order, dropping his Kentucky Post poster in the bin. Like the CIA and Justice Department reports, it also found that neither Blandn, Meneses, nor Ross were associated with the CIA. When he was engaged, he worked hard. padding-left: 10px!important; There has been speculation that he may have met with foul play because he had received two gunshot wounds to the head, The Sacramento Bee reported Wednesday. Army. I first heard about Webb eight years ago, I tell Bell, from the Paris-based journalist Paul Moreira. With hindsight, Bell says, "the signs were there. After Webb's death, a collection of his stories from before and after the "Dark Alliance" series was published. color: #ddd; It sounds like a Tom Clancy novel, right? Webb began to shift from cynicism to curiosity. "[25] It also found disparities in the treatment of Black and White traffickers in the justice system, contrasting the treatment of Blandn and Ross after their arrests for drug trafficking. He is survived by his loving wife, Wendie, of Elgin; grandmother, Eileen Carrier of Elgin;. But the biggest loss he had was the writing. By Sam Stanton Bee Staff Writer Published 2:15 am PST Wednesday, December 15, 2004. . When it did, beginning with The Washington Post, it shocked Webb's critics as much as his many admirers. He is the oldest son of Pulitzer Prize-winninginvestigative journalist Gary Webb, the subject of the 2014 film "Kill the Messenger," starring Hollywood heavyweight Jeremy Renner. "Gary didn't take her seriously," says Susan Bell, "because he was always getting calls alleging weird stuff about the CIA. [31] In their front-page article, reporters Roberto Suro and Walter Pincus wrote that "available information" did not support the series's claims and that "the rise of crack" was "a broad-based phenomenon" driven in numerous places by diverse players. [46] Overholser was harshly critical of the series, "reported by a seemingly hotheaded fellow willing to have people leap to conclusions his reporting couldn't back up." George Webb and Paul Cottrell have begun a weekly series on CoronaVirus now, Mondays at 5PM, EST on paul Cottrell's Rumble Channel. [81], Peter Kornbluh, a researcher at George Washington University's National Security Archives, also does not agree that the report vindicated the series. At that time, Webb (pictured) was best known for the controversial three-part CIA 1996 expose he wrote the San Jose Mercury News called "Dark Alliance: The Story Behind the . Gary Webb's painstaking investigation and the incindiary conclusions he drew from it were based mostly on public records, as detailed in the "notes on sources" section in "Dark Alliance", including: undercover audio tapes, declassified government documents from the CIA, DEA, FBI, L.A. Sheriff's Department, files from the Iran-Contra . "The cause of death was determined to be self . [51], The editors met with Webb several times in February to discuss the results of the paper's internal review and eventually decided to print neither Carey's draft article nor the articles Webb had filed. "It sounds crazy," says Bell, "but having his motorbike stolen was the last straw. The series ran from October 2022, 1996, and was researched by a team of 17 reporters. His was the story of a man who gains information of wrongdoing, then, attempting to act in the public interest, seeks protection from his superiors, and the forces of law, and does not receive it. Gary Webb famously died of two gun shot wounds to the head and his death that was ruled a suicide, is the common sense notion that this was clearly assassination true? Gary's family found that old, storied, ("priceless to us," as his ex-wife, Susan Bell, described it to me) CDROM among his possessions. "By the end of his life he was just in a lot of pain," said Webb's ex-wife, Susan Bell. A revised version was published in 1999 that incorporated Webb's response to the CIA and Justice Department reports. Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in, Please refresh your browser to be logged in, Extra 20% off selected fashion and sportswear at Very, Up to 20% off & extra perks with Booking.com Genius Membership, $6 off a $50+ order with this AliExpress discount code, 10% off selected orders over 100 - eBay discount code, Compare broadband packages side by side to find the best deal for you, Compare cheap broadband deals from providers with fastest speed in your area, All you need to know about fibre broadband, Best Apple iPhone Deals in the UK March 2023, Compare iPhone contract deals and get the best offer this March, Compare the best mobile phone deals from the top networks and brands. He was born at Emmanuel Hospital in. She said the paper wanted to make up for what it had done in the past. In 1996, the award-winning journalist Gary Webb uncovered CIA links to Los Angeles drug dealers. Gary Webb was at his desk in the Mercury News's Sacramento office, in July 1995, when he received a message to call Coral Baca, a Hispanic woman from the San Francisco Bay area, allegedly connected to a Colombian drug cartel. Asking why crack became so prevalent in the Black community of Los Angeles, the article credited Blandn, referring to him as "the Johnny Appleseed of crack in California. Depressed, he became increasingly unpredictable in his behaviour and embarked on a series of affairs; he was divorced from Bell in 2000, though he remained close to her throughout his life and lived in a house in nearby Carmichael. The February 2000 report by the House Intelligence Committee in turn considered the book's claims as well as the series' claims. It also examined "how CIA handled and responded to information regarding allegations of drug trafficking" by people involved in Contra activities or support. margin-top: 10px; [35] The second article, by McManus, was the longest of the series and dealt with the role of the Contras in the drug trade and CIA knowledge of drug activities by the Contras. "They tried to make us look like crazies," says Blum. .article-native-ad { "If I had one dream for you," he wrote, "it was that you would go into journalism and carry on the kind of work I did - fighting, with all your might, the oppression and bigotry and stupidity and greed that surrounds us. Am J Mens Health, 2018 Mar 1:1557988318758788. doi: 10.1177/1557988318758788. The collection, The Killing Game: Selected Stories from the Author of Dark Alliance, was edited by Webb's son, Eric. In addition, Gary left multiple suicide notes to family members which were confirmed to be in his own hand by them. [69], Webb was found dead in his Carmichael home on December 10, 2004, with two gunshot wounds to the head. [6], Webb first began writing for the student newspaper at his college in Indianapolis. By the time Webb began researching Dark Alliance, Bell was 38 and they had three children. Webb, according to Bell, was a man who, more than most, found that his mood and self-esteem fluctuated in accordance with his professional fortunes. [7] After transferring to Northern Kentucky, he entered its journalism program and wrote for the school paper, The Northerner. If he could have chosen his own epitaph, it might have been a line from the letter he posted to Bell, immediately before he killed himself: "I do not regret," Webb told her, "anything that I have written." It noted that Blandn and Meneses claimed to have donated money to Contra sympathizers in Los Angeles, but found no information to confirm that it was true or that the agency had heard of it. Blandn and Meneses' high-volume supply of low-priced high-purity cocaine "allowed Ross to sew up the Los Angeles market and move on. Cooper Webb Wife Name Revealed. Webb established incontrovertible links * between Ricky Ross and Blandn who, two years later, would betray Ross to the authorities. And the importance of exposing them. Cuts and amendments were made at the request of Ceppos, executive editor of the Mercury News, and Webb's immediate editor Dawn Garcia, among others. ", She pauses: "That said, he did sleep with a gun under his bed.". Gary Stephen Webb(August 31, 1955 - December 10, 2004) was an American investigative journalist. "[2], Ceppos noted that Webb did not agree with these conclusions. The claim that the drug ring of Meneses-Blandn-Ross sparked the "crack explosion" has been perhaps the most criticized part of the series. It reads: "There should be no fetters on reporters, nor must they tamper with the truth, but give light so the people will find their own way." "He started having motorcycle crashes," Bell says. Can these things possibly be? The review was conducted primarily by editor Jonathan Krim and reporter Pete Carey, who had written the paper's first published analysis of the series. Gary Webb's family says his death was Suicide. Hired by the San Jose Mercury News, Webb contributed to the paper's Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of the Loma Prieta earthquake. Why bring up old white people atrocities against black people now? California senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein also took note and wrote to CIA director John Deutch and Attorney General Janet Reno, asking for investigations into the articles' allegations. Some might consider it an inappropriate assignment for a man with responsibilities. Peter Kornbluh, senior analyst with the George Washington University's National Security Archive, was one of the first to suggest that Webb had overplayed his hand in the Mercury News version of "Dark Alliance". I felt weak and distressed; the whole thing was so fresh. The first article, by Katz, developed a different picture of the origins of the crack trade than "Dark Alliance" had described, with more gangs and smugglers participating. The reports of the three federal investigations into the claims of "Dark Alliance" were not released until over a year after the series's publication. He was assigned to its Sacramento bureau, where he was allowed to choose most of his own stories. Gary Webb's wife, Sue Webb (now Sue Stokes), said that he had been depressed for years due to his inability to get hired at a daily newspaper. Ceppos initially defended Webb, and reportedly showed up at an in-house party wearing a military helmet. Jack Blum, who was the lead investigator for Senator John Kerry's Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations, which produced a highly damning 1989 report on drug-smuggling in the guise of national security, is one of several commentators to have questioned aspects of Webb's original reporting. [60], The House Intelligence Committee issued its report in February 2000. After introducing the three, the first article discussed primarily Blandn and Meneses, and their relationship with the Contras and the CIA. Do not quote me on anything.". Snowfall is an American crime drama television series set in Los Angeles in 1983. He said: 'No. It found that "the allegations contained in the original Mercury News articles were exaggerations of the actual facts." Much of the article highlighted the failure of law enforcement agencies to successfully prosecute them and stated that this was largely due to their Contra and CIA connections. The follow-up reporting in the Los Angeles Times and other papers has been criticised for focusing on problems in the series rather than re-examining the earlier CIA-Contra claims. } [67], Webb later moved to the State Assembly's Office of Majority Services. ". The first one, "The California Story," was issued in a classified version on December 17, 1997, and in an unclassified version on January 29, 1998. Webb was an assertive figure who drove fast cars and powerful motorcycles, hung heavy metal posters in his office and, at certain times in his life, smoked a fair amount of cannabis. In 1996, investigative journalist Gary Webb wrote a series of stories exposing the connection between the CIA and the crack cocaine that was being sold in So. GARY WEBB: His wife's office was burglarized. Webb's ex-wife, Stokes, now remarried and still living in Sacramento, had heard it all before, too. [66] She and Gary were married from 1979 to 2000 and had three children. [60], It found nothing to support the claim that "the drug trafficking activities of Blandn and Meneses were motivated by any commitment to support the Contra cause or Contra activities undertaken by CIA." Gary was born May 5, 1954, to his parents Worley and Margaret Webb, who preceded him in death as well as his brother, David Webb. In February, Gary Webb gave his ex-wife. He really did believe that," she says. [71] When asked by local reporters about the possibility of two gunshots being a suicide, Lyons replied "It's unusual in a suicide case to have two shots, but it has been done in the past, and it is in fact a distinct possibility." I believe that we fell short at every step of our process: in the writing, editing and production of our work. To Read the Full Story Become an Adweek+ Subscriber. He was born June 18, 1943, in Appleton, son of the late Wilford and Helen (Hauskey) Webb. He became an investigator for the California State Legislature, published a book based on the "Dark Alliance" series in 1998, and did freelance investigative reporting. It was written by Jesse Katz, the same reporter who, less than two years earlier, had described Ross's conglomerate as "the Wal-Mart of crack dealing".

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