Pubdate: Sat, 20 November 1999 Source: Tampa Tribune (FL) Copyright: 1999, The Tribune Co. Contact: http://www.tampatrib.com/ Forum: http://tampabayonline.net/interact/welcome.htm Author: Morris Kennedy of the Tribune IN TRIBUNE STORIES, TODD SMITH REVEALED A BIT OF HIS CHARACTER TAMPA - A bricklayer can point to a building and say that is mine, the work of my hands, my time, my life. A doctor's legacy is wrought in flesh and bone, the baby delivered and grown, the heart patient who recovered. And a journalist's life is traced in words - thoughts and observations, opinions, strung together, one story at a time, with no more rhyme or reason to the sequence than life itself. Taken as a whole, they form accidental chapters in an open-ended book. And if the writer is dedicated to the work and equal to the task, those stories will chronicle events as honestly as the frantic pace of the job allows. Todd C. Smith was just such a dedicated writer, whether he was covering a county zoning hearing in Tampa or the dark realm of cocaine smuggling in South America. Pause a moment and consider a few passages from his short, bright career. When Todd worked at The Tampa Tribune, he spent most of his time covering county government and local politics; but he also took a trip for the newspaper to Colombia to report on drug trafficking. The trip produced a two-part series that started Sept. 10, 1989, and was titled ``Colombia: Among Assassins.'' It begins with the funeral of a young man who was killed, like Todd would be two months later, in a case of mistaken identity. Listen to the opening lines: ``Medellin, Colombia - at the center of a throng of mourners is young Frank Libardo Escobar's coffin, gliding eerily on a stretcher along the walkway of the Itagui crypt. ``Leading the cortege are about two dozen drunk young men, some weeping, some with eyes bulging in stupor. ... ``A `mafioso' had been killed earlier this year. Escobar, 22, had been gunned down the night before in retribution. But friends say Escobar was the wrong man, killed in a case of mistaken identity. ``Escobar's pregnant widow pulls the coffin lid open for another look and then wails as the coffin is hoisted up. The crowd joins in a song, then disappears quickly. ... ``Here is cocaine violence in its most lawless form.'' ``Death begets death - such is the equation of the Colombian drug culture. Violence is only one aspect of a proud, democratic country with a friendly, charitable people. but violence pervades every level.'' He interviewed the families and friends of the murder victims, cowering judges, complacent wealthy businessmen. He rode with police trying to curb assassinations, and returned in the end to the funeral of the young man gunned down by mistake. ``At the Catholic Church of the Fallen Jesus Christ, a baby-faced padre is giving the funeral mass. ... `I know there are some of you with hate in your hearts. I know you will go out tonight and kill,' says Father Nevardo Catano. ``Catano sounds like he has delivered this message before. `Money has replaced God. Power has replaced God. And for this God is very disturbed by this present world.' ``He closes by borrowing from Martin Luther King Jr. `What bothers me is not the violence, or the violent ones, but rather your indifference.' '' Smith ended the series with this observation: ``A Medellin man said, over lunch at a shopping mall allegedly built by drug kingpins, that drugs and violence had not affected his life. `It's not our war,' he said. ``He was wrong. This war allows no bystanders.'' That is the theme that runs throughout his reporting, whether writing about Colombian mayhem or the county commission. His was a fight against indifference and complacency. ``This war allows no bystanders.'' - --- MAP posted-by: Derek Rea