United States: CFWIJ Is Horrified By The Killing Of Aviva Okeson-Haberman
Location: United States, Kansas City
Date: April 28, 2021
Journalist Aviva Okeson-Haberman was found dead in her apartment on Friday, April 23, from what appears to be a gunshot wound. Okeson-Haberman was a young radio journalist cherished by her colleagues and friends. The police are investigating the circumstance around her death.
On Sunday, April 25, KCUR, Kansas City's NPR station and Okeson-Haberman’s employer firm, announced her death after her body was found wounded in her first floor apartment on Friday. Okeson-Haberman died from a bullet that pierced through her window, and the police are currently investigating the case as a homicide. Only 24 years old, Okeson-Haberman was an intern at KCUR before joining the station in June 2019 as the Missouri politics and government reporter. However, lately, she was considering moving to Lawrence, Kansas, which was 40 miles from her current location to take up a position at Kansas News Service in partnership with her current firm. Her new job would have required her to report on social issues and criminal justice.
Okeson-Haberman was found by a colleague who called on her. The colleague called on the authorities for a welfare check after not receiving a response. According to the colleague, while she was waiting on the authorities, she, along with other women, saw a bullet hole in the corner of a bedroom window and Okeson-Haberman lying wounded inside.
Not just the channel, but Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas and Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly also expressed condolences. "[Aviva was] an especially beloved friend and colleague just beginning what promised to be a brilliant career," KCUR said.
"Aviva was a creative, thorough, challenging and insightful reporter. Always prepared, she told the full and complex story of our city in one of the most challenging years in its history," Lucas tweeted. "Her life showed us her compassion for those who too often were voiceless."
"Her death lays bare our gravest unsolved epidemic and the preventable tragedies too many families endure," he wrote.
Aviva was a creative, thorough, challenging, and insightful reporter. Always prepared, she told the full and complex story of our city in one of the most challenging years in its history.
— Mayor Q (@QuintonLucasKC) April 25, 2021
Her life showed us her compassion for those who too often were voiceless.
The Coalition For Women In Journalism is shocked that young radio journalist was killed. We extend our heartfelt condolences to Aviva’s friends and families in these times, and urge police authorities to get to the bottom of the matter with the utmost urgency.
The CFWIJ strongly condemns the police brutality against journalists. We demand the immediate return of the press cards seized from the security forces. Policies to intimidate journalists should be abandoned, and journalism should be practiced under the criteria of freedom of the press.
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