A passing motorist - a heavily tattooed young man - gave him a lift home, then returned and stole the motorcycle, which police recovered from him three days after Webb's death. When his medical insurance expired, he stopped taking his antidepressants. He had sold his house the week before his death because he was unable to afford the mortgage. In interviews after leaving The Mercury News, Webb described the 1997 controversy as media manipulation. But Webb had one huge blind side: He was fundamentally a man of passion, not of fairness. The other article, citing interviews with current and former intelligence and law-enforcement officials, questioned the importance of the drug dealers discussed in the series, both in the crack cocaine trade and in supporting the Nicaraguan Contras' fight against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua. Unable to get work from any major US newspaper, he spent the four months before his death writing for * a free-sheet covering the Sacramento area. By the late spring of 1996, Webb was ready to publish. 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. "[79], Writing after Webb's death in 2005, The Nation magazine's former Washington Editor David Corn said that Webb "was on to something but botched part of how he handled it." The men were identified as 29-year-old Gary Webb and 24-year-old Jacob Gipson. 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. 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. "If there was an eye to the storm," Katz wrote, "if there was a mastermind behind crack's decade-long reign, if there was one outlaw most responsible for flooding LA's streets with mass-marketed cocaine, his name was Freeway Rick. and Drugs Has a Life of Its Own", "Pivotal Figures of Newspaper Series May Be Only Bit Players", "Tracking the Genesis of the Crack Trade", "Examining Charges of CIA Role in Crack Sales", "History Fuels Outrage Over Crack Allegations", "Ex-L.A. Times Writer Apologizes for "Tawdry" Attacks", "Mercury News Executive Editor Jerry Ceppos' Letter to the Washington Post", "Washington Post response to Mercury News Executive Editor Jerry Ceppos", "Despite critics, a good story Crack and the contras", "CIA-Contra-Crack Cocaine Controversy: Epilogue", "CIA-Contra-Crack Cocaine Controversy: Conclusions", United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, "Are You Sure You Want to Ruin Your Career? Webb became a staff reporter for the San Jose Mercury News in 1988. He wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, which initially backed his articles but later dropped him. He later picked the surname 'Numan' from an . "But that," pointed out Blum, who is now a Washington attorney, "in no way - in no way - diminishes the wrongness of what these bastards did. "I think the behaviour of the media in all of this has been amazing," says Bell. On December 10th, 2004 Gary Webb was found dead of two (allegedly self inflicted) gun shots to the head. He went into the bedroom, and picked up a .38 that had belonged to his father. Furthermore, the duo has been blessed with two daughters, Persia Numan and Raven Numan. Gary and Karla James Webb married and blended their families on January 7, 1989 in O'Donnell, Texas. Yes. So, this is not something you really make a career out of, nor would you want to. So, how much is Gary Webb worth at the age of 49 years old? [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. Garcia responded by email but declined to speak on the record about the editing process of Webb's series. When he was engaged, he worked hard. Snowfall is an American crime drama television series set in Los Angeles in 1983. His wife, Gemma, was a member of the Sidcup fan club. "He started having motorcycle crashes," Bell says. But his central thesis - that the CIA, having participated in narcotics trafficking in central America, had, at best, turned a blind eye to the activities of drug dealers in LA - has never been in question. 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. Nobody who heads a government agency can let such an allegation stand.". After Ceppos' column, The Mercury News spent the next several months conducting an internal review of the story. He was so depressed. The coroner's staff concluded that the second shot hit an artery.[70]. According to Bell, Webb had been unhappy for some time . Sue remarried two years ago. At the end of March, Ceppos told Webb that he was going to present the internal review findings in a column. "[2], Ceppos noted that Webb did not agree with these conclusions. The Los Angeles Times and other major papers published articles suggesting the "Dark Alliance" claims were overstated and, in November 1996, Jerome Ceppos, the executive editor at Mercury News, wrote about being "in the eye of the storm". Ceppos initially defended Webb, and reportedly showed up at an in-house party wearing a military helmet. Almost. Hired by the San Jose Mercury News, Webb contributed to the paper's Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of the Loma Prieta earthquake. His wife is Sue Webb (m. 1979-2000) Gary Webb Net Worth His net worth has been growing significantly in 2021-2022. Webb came home and put his belongings in order, dropping his Kentucky Post poster in the bin. In . The article discussed Webb's contacts with Ross's attorney and prosecution complaints of how Ross's defense had used Webb's series. [15], In 1988, Webb was recruited by the San Jose Mercury News, which was looking for an investigative reporter. As The Independent reported, in an interview with Gary's ex-wife Susan Webb: I felt she really trashed me. It also stated that the Contras may have acted with the knowledge and protection of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). "Look at what happened to Gary Webb. Contact Scott Herhold . [3], Webb was born in Corona, California. Although it did find that both men were major drug dealers, "guilty of enriching themselves at the expense of countless drug users," and that they had contributed money to the Contra cause, "we did not find that their activities were responsible for the crack cocaine epidemic in South Central Los Angeles, much less the rise of crack throughout the nation, or that they were a significant source of support for the Contras. Shortly before I left for Sacramento, Moreira, who knew Webb, had shown me unbroadcast footage which shows the French reporter making a phone call to a media commentator in the US, asking him about Webb's death. Gary Webb's Ex-Wife Set to Attend New York Premiere By Richard Horgan October 8, 2014 Cleveland Plain Dealer film critic Clint O'Connor had a solid feature the other day about Kill the. And the importance of exposing them. His death was ruled a suicide by the Sacramento County coroner's office. She kept crying about how terrible it all was - by which I mean that she was, physically, crying. 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." George Webb and Paul Cottrell have begun a weekly series on CoronaVirus now, Mondays at 5PM, EST on paul Cottrell's Rumble Channel. 17 years ago, Gary Webb wrote a series of articles that said some bad things about the CIA and drug traffickers. [81], Peter Kornbluh, a researcher at George Washington University's National Security Archives, also does not agree that the report vindicated the series. [10] The series, which examined the murder of a coal company president with ties to organized crime, won the national Investigative Reporters and Editors Award for reporting from a small newspaper. And "we really didn't do anything to advance his work or illuminate much to the story, and it was a really kind of tawdry exercise. Webb's then-wife Sue remembers coming home from the shops and finding her. For two years, Blum and Kerry supervised the interrogation of dozens of witnesses who described CIA-related drug deals in central America. Ross was a major drug dealer in Los Angeles. "To get back at his editors?". One time he called me and he said: 'I have this plan that will benefit us both.' Webb, unlike Blum or Kerry, had to face his difficulties alone. Webb put in a call to Robert Parry. We had been here before." By the time Webb began researching Dark Alliance, Bell was 38 and they had three children. 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. But the report was correct. ". [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. Video courtesy of documentary FREEWAY: CRACK IN THE SYSTEM premiering on Al Jazeera America in early 2015. It's . He died on December 10, 2004 in Carmichael, California, USA. WEBB, Gary T. - Age 55, of Goodrich, died Thursday, May 15, 2003 at his residence. "[80], Not all writers agree that the Inspector-General's report supported the series's claims. GARY WEBB: His wife's office was burglarized. After examining the investigations and prosecutions of the main figures in the series, Blandn, Meneses and Ross, it concluded that "Although the investigations suffered from various problems of communication and coordination, their successes and failures were determined by the normal dynamics that affect the success of scores of investigations of high-level drug traffickers These factors, rather than anything as spectacular as a systematic effort by the CIA or any other intelligence agency to protect the drug trafficking activities of Contra supporters, determined what occurred in the cases we examined. Uncharacteristically, Persia added her vocals to her father's 2017 song, 'My Name is Ruin'. He wrote well. GARY WEBB OBITUARY. After the series's publication, the Northern California branch of the national Society of Professional Journalists voted Webb "Journalist of the Year" for 1996. And this is not a happy story - or," she adds, "a little one.". Webb's research took a year, in the course of which he received death threats. "They use the giant corporate press rather than saying anything directly. He cites the case of Alfred McCoy, now Professor of South East Asian Studies at the University of Wisconsin. [73], On the other hand, many of the writers and editors who worked with him have had high praise for him. Webb's ex wife, Susan Bell told reporters that she believed Webb had died by suicide. (Strawser) Webb. What was new about Webb's reports, published under the title "Dark Alliance" in the Californian paper the San Jose Mercury News, was that for the first time it brought the story back home. The series. He was one of six reporters at the San Jose Mercury News to win a 1990 Pulitzer Prize for General News Reporting for a series of stories on the collapse of the Cypress Street Viaduct during northern California's 1989 earthquake. The CIA Inspector-General's report was issued in two volumes. According to Walt Bogdanich, a former colleague on the Plain Dealer who has won two Pulitzers and now works for The New York Times, Webb was the best retriever of information from public records he has ever seen. Contemporary discussions of the series are discussed in the section on, Webb 2011, "Caltrans Ignored Elevated Freeway Safety. Funeral service will be held at 11 a.m. on Monday, May 19, 2003 at Goodrich United Methodist Church, 8071 S. State Rd., Goodrich, Pastor Karl Zeigler will officiate. To pay off his mounting debts, Webb sold the Carmichael property, where he was living alone, and arranged to move in with his mother. [32], The New York Times published two articles on the series in mid-October, both written by reporter Tim Golden. Ross was also released early after cooperating in an investigation of police corruption, but was rearrested a few months later in a sting operation arranged with Blandn's help. He crashed and shredded his clothes, face and body on a barbed-wire fence." By 1997, Bell tells me, Webb - whose 30-year career had earned him more awards than there is room for in her study - had been reassigned to the Mercury News's office in Cupertino. [71], After Webb's death, a collection of his stories from before and after the "Dark Alliance" series was published. 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. There were no offers. [22], The lede of the first article set out the series' basic claims: "For the better part of a decade, a San Francisco Bay Area drug ring sold tons of cocaine to the Crips and Bloods street gangs of Los Angeles and funneled millions in drug profits to a Latin American guerrilla army run by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency." It was truthful. [39] Carey's critique appeared in mid-October and went through several of the Post's criticisms of the series, including the importance of Blandn's drug ring in spreading crack, questions about Blandn's testimony in court, and how specific series allegations about CIA involvement had been, giving Webb's responses. [55] Webb eventually chose Cupertino, but was unhappy with the routine stories he was reporting there and the long commute. The Sad Saga of Gary Webb. "Gary was 18 and I was 16 when we first met and started dating in Indianapolis," said Sue Stokes. Because Blandn cooperated with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), he spent only 28 months in prison, became a paid government informant, and received permanent resident status. The first effect of the onslaught was to ease the pressure on the CIA. 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]. Gary Webb was born in Corona, California, in 1955. 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. In the column, Ceppos defended parts of the article, writing that the series had "solidly documented" that the drug ring described in the series did have connections with the Contras and did sell large quantities of cocaine in inner-city Los Angeles. 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. 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. [65], After leaving The Mercury News, Webb worked as an investigator for the California State Legislature. [57], The report covered actions by Department of Justice employees in the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the DEA, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and U.S. And yet, for all his Easy Rider tendencies, he was also a dedicated family man with an extraordinary appetite for researching minutiae. In city after city, local dealers either bought from Ross or got left behind."[24]. The complete lack of desire to ask the difficult questions makes me want to scream. The passing of Gary ends more than 50 years with his best friend and loving wife, Marilyn J. The response from the American press took two months to arrive. "It sounds crazy," says Bell, "but having his motorbike stolen was the last straw. ", She pauses: "That said, he did sleep with a gun under his bed.". [16] As part of The Mercury News team that covered the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, Webb and his colleague Pete Carey wrote a story examining the causes of the collapse of the Cypress Street Viaduct. The Los Angeles Sheriff's Department began its own investigation into the "Dark Alliance" claims.[30]. The series examined the origins of the crack cocaine trade in Los Angeles and claimed that members of the anti-communist Contra rebels in Nicaragua had played a major role in creating the trade, using cocaine profits to finance their fight against the government in Nicaragua. [39] The Post refused to print his letter. On December 10th, 2004 Gary Webb was found dead of two (allegedly self-inflicted) gunshots to the head. Dr. Gary A. Webb is a geriatrician in Marco Island, Florida. The first shot went through his face, and exited at his left cheek. When they married, she was aged just 21. He placed his keys and ID cards on the kitchen table, together with a cremation certificate he had purchased for himself. When he told me, I said it sounded crazy. [42] The extent of the criticism, however, convinced Ceppos that The Mercury News had to acknowledge to its readers that the series had been subjected to strong criticism. Then, on 10 December, he resigned. I mean - please.". "[82], Kill the Messenger (2014) is based on Webb's book Dark Alliance and Nick Schou's biography of Webb. He was a former member of Bethlehem . Age 43 years. It was just more than he could take.". Although Blandn's cartel was undoubtedly one of the first to bring crack to LA, Webb was almost certainly suffering a rush of blood when he described the group as "the first pipeline" into the city. He told me: 'If I can't do what I want to do, what's the point?' 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. Baca claimed that a drug dealer with close links to the CIA had framed her boyfriend, who was also in the cocaine business. "He was crying. 2) The series's estimate of the money involved was presented as fact instead of as an estimate. "Do not quote me. [66] For instance, he published an article on racial profiling in traffic stops in Esquire magazine, in April 1999. [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." When I first heard the news, I tell Bell, I was inclined to believe the conspiracy theories that still proliferate on the internet, suggesting that Webb had been assassinated - either by one of the drug dealers he'd met while writing Dark Alliance, or by the intelligence services who were supposed to police them. His death was ruled a suicide by the Sacramento County coroner's office. The third article discussed the social effects of the crack trade, noting that it had a disparate effect on African-Americans. [9], Webb's first major investigative work appeared in 1980, when the Cincinnati Post published "The Coal Connection," a seventeen-part series by Webb and Post reporter Thomas Scheffey. After gaining access to secret grand jury transcripts in 1996, and following the subsequent paper trail that followed therein, Gary Webb made the shocking discovery that government informant, Oscar Danilo Blandn, was covertly selling tons of cocaine for the Central Intelligence Agency in South Central Los Angeles, and other parts of the country. In addition, Gary left multiple suicide notes to family members which were confirmed to be in his own hand by them. [20] The website artwork showed the silhouette of a man smoking a crack pipe superimposed over the CIA seal. Working in San Jose would have meant daily contact with what Bell describes as "people he did not want to be with". 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. Gary's documentation is awesome and his work ethic is unbelievable. 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