Synopsis
When police officer Gary Williams is gunned down in the streets of San Antonio, reporter Brian Karem's sources help him obtain the sole interview with Henry Hernandez, who confesses to killing the officer, but swears it was self-defense. Karem is subpoenaed, but refuses to reveal his sources. Cited for contempt, he becomes the first reporter in more than a decade to be jailed for protecting a confidential source.
Reviews
On March 27, 1989, in San Antonio, Tex., two Hispanic brothers, Julian and Henry Hernandez, both with criminal records and both drunk at the time, became involved in an altercation with white police officer Gary Williams, a heavy drug user who, according to the evidence, was high on drugs that night. Williams was shot with his own gun and died the next day; shortly thereafter the brothers surrendered to police. Karem, a local TV reporter, unofficially arranged a telephone interview with Henry Hernandez in jail, a conversation in which the prisoner said he had killed Williams in self-defense. The courts demanded Karem's notes to determine who had helped set up the interview; he declined to provide them and so was sent to jail for six months. Eventually all Karem's sources were uncovered by others and he was freed. The Hernandez brothers are still in jail awaiting trail. The case itself is uninteresting (except as an instance of discrimination), but journalists will applaud Karem's stand for the principle that reporters should not be compelled to reveal confidential sources.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
A slow-paced account of how San Antonio TV-reporter Karem was jailed for refusing to surrender his notes on the slaying of a local cop. At 3:30 on the morning of March 27, 1989, Karem was called to investigate the shooting of San Antonio patrol officer Gary Williams. Two days later, brothers Henry and Julian Hernandez turned themselves in for the crime and were charged with capital murder. Karem persuaded a cop to pass his phone number to Henry Hernandez, who called the reporter from jail--a tremendous scoop for Karem's TV station. Later, though, the county prosecutor said that she could not indict without Karem's notes of his taped interview with Hernandez--which Karem refused to surrender. Although it became obvious to all parties that the prosecution had the same information as Karem, the reporter was jailed four times for contempt and, during his fourth incarceration, lost an appeal to the Supreme Court. Here, Karem's pedestrian account demonstrates his great strength of character in going to the wall for his principles, although he does try to milk maximum drama from his predicament with such chapter titles as ``Six Months In the Hole'' and ``Sodomy No!''--and comes across as a bit of a confabulator when it turns out that he served a total of 16 days and three afternoons in jail. Meanwhile, the Hernandezes remain in jail without indictment. Their claim of self-defense has been buttressed by the disclosure of brutality complaints in the murdered cop's personnel jacket and by an autopsy report showing that at the time of the killing he was, in the words of one doctor, ``ripped to the tits'' on cocaine and heroin. Unfortunately, the author doesn't fully develop this ongoing story here. Interesting, but suffering from tunnel vision and an odd lack of drama. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Karem was a television reporter in San Antonio when a policeman was shot and killed in 1989. While he was investigating the crime and the two young Hispanic men charged with murder, Karem received help from an anonymous source in obtaining an interview with one of the suspects, who confessed but also brought up several disturbing and then-unknown aspects of the case. Karem's subsequent refusal to reveal the identity of his source led to several court battles and stays in jail, but throughout he held fast to his journalistic beliefs in freedom of the press and confidentiality of sources. Karem's book is an intriguing and well-written mix of newsroom excitement, courtroom drama, police procedure, and even mystery, as it becomes clear that the police officer had drugs in his system at the time of his death and the shooting may have been in self-defense (this is yet to be determined, as the suspects have yet to be tried in court). Highly recommended for all journalism and true crime collections.
- Sally G. Waters, Stetson Law Lib., St. Petersburg, Fla.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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