By the end of September, three federal investigations had been announced: an investigation into the CIA allegations conducted by CIA Inspector-General Frederick Hitz, an investigation into the law enforcement allegations by Justice Department Inspector-General Michael Bromwich, and a second investigation into the CIA by the House Intelligence Committee. Many writers discussing the series point to errors in it. By a fortunate coincidence of timing, the report was released on a day when the Monica Lewinsky scandal dominated every front page in the country. Garcia responded by email but declined to speak on the record about the editing process of Webb's series. It concluded, however, that these problems were "a far cry from the type of broad manipulation and corruption of the federal criminal justice system suggested by the original allegations.". After the publication of "Dark Alliance," The Mercury News continued to pursue the story, publishing follow-ups to the original series for the next three months. [18], Webb began researching "Dark Alliance" in July 1995. [26] Other papers were slow to pick up the story, but African Americans quickly took note, especially in South Central Los Angeles where the dealers discussed in the series had been active. I have also followed up on key topics raised by Paul Cottrell will leading industry experts like Dr. Peter McCollough on the Tommy Carrigan Show, weekly in 2021 and 2022. The Sad Saga of Gary Webb . "By the end of his life he was just in a lot of pain," said Webb's ex-wife, Susan Bell. His father was a Marine sergeant, and the family moved frequently, as his career took him to new assignments. Sue remarried two years ago. Gary Stephen Webb (August 31, 1955 December 10, 2004) was an American investigative journalist. The series ran from October 2022, 1996, and was researched by a team of 17 reporters. The men were identified as 29-year-old Gary Webb and 24-year-old Jacob Gipson. Webb followed up Baca's leads at the California State Library, examining Congressional records and FBI reports. [citation needed], Views on Webb's journalism have been polarized. At the end of March, Ceppos told Webb that he was going to present the internal review findings in a column. Webb's condition exacerbated his natural recklessness. "He thought I was being cowardly. Take it from someone who knew him well. Can these things possibly be? But "Dark Alliance" was also posted on the Mercury News's website, with the image of a crack smoker superimposed on the CIA badge. His series of articles - which prompted the distinguished reporter and former Newsweek Washington correspondent Robert Parry to describe Webb as "an American hero" - incited fury among the African-American community, many of whom took his investigation as proof that the White House saw crack as a way of bringing genocide to the ghetto. "Because of Gary Webb's work," said Senator John Kerry, "the CIA launched an investigation that found dozens of connections to drug runners. Some editors regarded him as stubborn to the point of insolence. Beth Ann Webb May 10, 1962 - May 22, 2019. I felt weak and distressed; the whole thing was so fresh. The response from the American press took two months to arrive. His. Here's the section from Wikipedia: Webb was found dead in his Carmichael home on December 10, 2004, with two gunshot wounds to the head. Webb's research took a year, in the course of which he received death threats. In 1986, Webb wrote an article saying that the Chief Justice of the Ohio Supreme Court, Frank D. Celebrezze accepted contributions from groups with organized crime connections. [29] Waters urged the CIA, the Department of Justice, and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence to investigate. 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, Get up to 10% off using the Booking.com app, $6 off a $50+ order with this AliExpress discount code, 10% off selected product with this 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 April 2023, Compare iPhone contract deals and get the best offer this April, Compare the best mobile phone deals from the top networks and brands. "The way he was acting it would be hard for me to believe it was anything but suicide," she said. It was good that his story forced those reports to come out, but part of what made that happen was based on misleading information. After being reassigned to the Mercury News's office in Curpertino, where they had him writing death notices, Gary Webb resigned and fell into depression. Gary's ex-wife Susan Bell states: "The way he was acting it would be hard for me to believe it was anything but suicide." An interesting OPINION, but she supplies no convincing evidence to illustrate what she means by this. "[76] Scott Herhold, Webb's first editor at The Mercury-News, wrote in a 2013 column that "Gary Webb was a journalist of outsized talent. "You sound very scared," Moreira remarks. One of these was a 1986 raid on Blandn's drug organization by the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department, which the article suggested had produced evidence of CIA ties to drug smuggling that was later suppressed. Sacramento Bee The Sacramento County Coroner's Office issued a statement Tuesday after receiving calls about investigative journalist Gary Webb's death being caused by more than one wound . Call 911 for assistance. 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. On one road trip, in 2001, he came off the motorcycle and split his helmet open. Gary and Karla James Webb married and blended their families on January 7, 1989 in O'Donnell, Texas. It was published in 1998 as Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion. Gary Stephen Webb (August 31, 1955 - December 10, 2004) was an American investigative journalist. "I think the behaviour of the media in all of this has been amazing," says Bell. Webb came home and put his belongings in order, dropping his Kentucky Post poster in the bin. WEBB, Mr. Gary Lee, our beloved son, husband, father, grandfather, brother and uncle went home with his heavenly Father Monday, August 29, 2011 at University of Michigan Hospital. "[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. It was truthful. Age 43 years. He had a tight circle that included almost no one from the Mercury News, says his former wife, Susan Bell, and a sensitive side he rarely showed outside the bounds of his close friends and family. According to Bell, Webb had been unhappy for some time . [14] In 1984, Webb wrote a story titled Driving Off With Profits which claimed that the promoters of a race in Cleveland paid themselves nearly a million dollars from funds that should have gone to the city of Cleveland. Eventually, the media would mostly turn against Webb, attempting to discredit him. The collection, The Killing Game: Selected Stories from the Author of Dark Alliance, was edited by Webb's son, Eric. [50] By January, Webb filed drafts of four more articles based on his trip, but his editors concluded that the new articles would not help shore up the original series's claims. [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." Furthermore, the duo has been blessed with two daughters, Persia Numan and Raven Numan. Celebrezze eventually sued the Plain Dealer and won an undisclosed out of court settlement. [56] He resigned from the paper in November 1997. He placed his keys and ID cards on the kitchen table, together with a cremation certificate he had purchased for himself. 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. Webb chose the second option. Kill the Messenger, a movie starring Jeremy Renner, just opened, about the life and death of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Gary Webb, who committed suicide in 2004. As it turned out," she adds, "that was not their intent.". With hindsight, Bell says, "the signs were there. In a 2013 article in the LA Weekly, Schou wrote that Webb was "vindicated by a 1998 CIA Inspector General report, which revealed that for more than a decade the agency had covered up a business relationship it had with Nicaraguan drug dealers like Blandn. Within weeks, the site was attracting up to 1.3m hits per day. Webb disagreed with this conclusion.[1][2]. Yes. Webb put in a call to Robert Parry. His corpse was discovered on the seventh anniversary of his resignation from the Mercury News. He wrote well. The drugs went to South Central LA. [60], The House Intelligence Committee issued its report in February 2000. While police were preparing the case against her boyfriend, Baca alleged, officers had disclosed documents which revealed that one of her lover's associates had been working for the Contras. Few reporters I've known could match his nose for an investigative story. ", Webb had already been cremated and his ashes scattered in the bay off Santa Cruz two weeks before. After the announcement of federal investigations into the claims made in the series, other newspapers began investigating, and several papers published articles suggesting the series' claims were overstated. There was no coffin, casket or tombstone. When his body was found, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly was on the DVD machine, and his favourite CD, Ian Hunter's live album Welcome to the Club, was in the CD player. Army. A man who was wrongfully arrested and sent to prison on remand has been awarded 100,000 in compensation from Police Scotland. Webb's ex wife, Susan Bell told reporters that she believed Webb had died by suicide. This drug ring "opened the first pipeline between Colombia's cocaine cartels and the black neighborhoods of Los Angeles" and, as a result, "The cocaine that flooded in helped spark a crack explosion in urban America."[23]. 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. Calling the Post's overall focus "misplaced", Overholser expressed regret that the paper had not taken the opportunity to re-examine whether the CIA had overlooked Contra involvement in drug smuggling, "a subject The Post and the public had given short shrift. ", She pauses: "That said, he did sleep with a gun under his bed.". In a three-part expos, investigative journalist Gary Webb reported that a guerrilla army in Nicaragua had used crack cocaine sales in Los Angeles' black neighborhoods to fund an attempted coup of Nicaragua's socialist government in the 1980s and that the CIA had purposefully funded it. [59], The first volume of the report found no evidence that "any past or present employee of CIA, or anyone acting on behalf of CIA, had any direct or indirect dealing" with Ross, Blandn, or Meneses or that any of the other figures mentioned in "Dark Alliance" were ever employed by or associated with or contacted by the agency. 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