Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
WaPo: He showed me a lawless border town. Then masked gunmen killed him in front of his family.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/he-showed-me-a-lawless-border-town-then-masked-gunmen-killed-him-in-front-of-his-family/2020/02/14/53693762-4eb5-11ea-967b-e074d302c7d4_story.html
Friends and relatives of Leo Veras, a Brazilian journalist, accompany his coffin to the Ponta Porã cemetery Thursday. (Marciano Candia/AP)
By Terrence McCoy
Feb. 14, 2020 at 5:16 p.m. EST
RIO DE JANEIRO — What do you say about a death as horrific as this? What do you say about a man who was murdered by two masked intruders inside his home, in front of his family, while they ate dinner? What do you say, except: His name was Leo, and he was a journalist, and I knew him.
In the parlance of foreign correspondence, Leo Veras, 52, was my fixer. A beat reporter in the lawless border town of Ponta Porã — where Brazil’s most powerful gangs wage war for control of smuggling routes — he helped me report a recent story on the illegal pesticides trade. He arranged interviews with cops, politicians and crooks. He introduced me to his wife and two young children. He shared every meal with me. He made me laugh. He made me promise I wouldn’t leave the hotel without him. He kept me safe.
Dogged, resourceful, glad-handing, chain-smoking, ebullient — he was all of those things, a mishmash of qualities somehow reduced to a few shattering words in the Thursday morning news story: “Journalist Leo Veras shot dead in his own house.”
One more dead journalist in a world where truth-seeking is under attack and its practitioners are increasingly viewed as enemies rather than participants in democracy. Hundreds of journalists across the world are in jail, and dozens more were killed last year, with many of the murders going unsolved, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.
</snip>
Friends and relatives of Leo Veras, a Brazilian journalist, accompany his coffin to the Ponta Porã cemetery Thursday. (Marciano Candia/AP)
By Terrence McCoy
Feb. 14, 2020 at 5:16 p.m. EST
RIO DE JANEIRO — What do you say about a death as horrific as this? What do you say about a man who was murdered by two masked intruders inside his home, in front of his family, while they ate dinner? What do you say, except: His name was Leo, and he was a journalist, and I knew him.
In the parlance of foreign correspondence, Leo Veras, 52, was my fixer. A beat reporter in the lawless border town of Ponta Porã — where Brazil’s most powerful gangs wage war for control of smuggling routes — he helped me report a recent story on the illegal pesticides trade. He arranged interviews with cops, politicians and crooks. He introduced me to his wife and two young children. He shared every meal with me. He made me laugh. He made me promise I wouldn’t leave the hotel without him. He kept me safe.
Dogged, resourceful, glad-handing, chain-smoking, ebullient — he was all of those things, a mishmash of qualities somehow reduced to a few shattering words in the Thursday morning news story: “Journalist Leo Veras shot dead in his own house.”
One more dead journalist in a world where truth-seeking is under attack and its practitioners are increasingly viewed as enemies rather than participants in democracy. Hundreds of journalists across the world are in jail, and dozens more were killed last year, with many of the murders going unsolved, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.
</snip>
I miss the days when I'd read a story like this, feel sorrow, but then feel slightly comforted that the open assassination of journalists couldn't happen here in the US.
8 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
More than a few times I've taken a moment of relief that I lived in a country where the rule of law was paramount and the pillars of democracy were respected. Not anymore. We're inches away from the same. And in many jurisdictions in America, the local cops will think said journalist got what they deserved.
Here's to those everywhere who stand up for the truth and report it, even if it may cost them their lives.
The institutions we've counted on, like the US Senate and the DoJ, have fallen. We're running out of bulwarks. 
