Gary Webb dies - reported on CIA Cocaine Connections
Bill Stewart
bill.stewart at pobox.com
Sun Dec 12 20:04:08 PST 2004
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/states/california/peninsula/10399522.htm
http://www.sacbee.com/state_wire/story/11745531p-12630606c.html (AP Storty)
Gary Webb, 49, former Mercury News reporter, author
INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST WROTE CONTROVERSIAL SERIES
By Jessica Portner
Mercury News
Gary Webb, a former Mercury News investigative reporter, author and
legislative staffer who ignited a firestorm with his controversial stories,
died Friday in an apparent suicide in his suburban Sacramento home. He was 49.
The Sacramento County coroner's office said that when A Better Moving
Company arrived at Mr. Webb's Carmichael home at about 8:20 a.m. Friday, a
worker discovered a note posted to the front door which read: ``Please do
not enter. Call 911 and ask for an ambulance.''
Mr. Webb, an award-winning journalist, was found dead of a gunshot wound to
the head, Sacramento County Deputy Coroner Bill Guillot said Saturday.
Mr. Webb's friends and colleagues described him as a devoted father and a
funny, dogged reporter who was passionate about investigative journalism.
As a staff writer for the Mercury News from 1989 to 1997, he exposed
freeway retrofitting problems in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake and wrote
stories about the Department of Motor Vehicles' computer software fiascos.
Mr. Webb was perhaps best known for sparking a national controversy with a
1996 story that contended supporters of a CIA-backed guerrilla army in
Nicaragua helped trigger America's crack-cocaine epidemic in the 1980s. The
``Dark Alliance'' series in the Mercury News came under fire by other news
organizations, and the paper's own investigation concluded the series did
not meet its standards.
Mr. Webb resigned a year and a half after the series appeared in the paper.
He then published his book, ``Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras and the
Crack Cocaine Explosion.''
In the past few years, Mr. Webb worked in the California Assembly Speaker's
Office of Member Services and for the Joint Legislative Audit Committee.
The committee investigated charges that Oracle received a no-bid contract
from Gov. Gray Davis. After being laid off from his legislative post last
year, Mr. Webb was hired by the Sacramento News and Review, a weekly
publication.
Tom Dresslar, a spokesman for state Attorney General Bill Lockyer who has
known Mr. Webb for more than a decade, was distraught Saturday when he
heard that his friend may have taken his own life.
``He had a fierce commitment to justice, truth and cared a lot about people
who are forgotten and society tries to shove into the dark corners,''
Dresslar said. ``It's a big loss for me personally and a great loss for the
journalism community.''
Services for Mr. Webb are pending.
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Bill Stewart bill.stewart at pobox.com
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