NEW YORK, NY.- Brent Renaud, who with his brother Craig formed a Peabody Award-winning documentary film team that drew attention to human suffering, often working with major news organizations like The New York Times, was fatally shot in Irpin, a suburb of Kyiv, Ukraine, on Sunday. He was 50.
Renaud was the first journalist on assignment from an American news organization to be killed while reporting on the war in Ukraine. It also appeared likely that he was the first foreign journalist killed during the conflict.
Juan Arredondo, a photographer and adjunct professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, told The Associated Press that he was traveling with Renaud and that he was injured in the same attack.
Capt. Oleksandr Bogai, deputy chief of police in Irpin, said Renaud was shot in the head when Russian forces fired at his car, which was being driven by a local civilian across a Ukrainian checkpoint near the northern border of Irpin.
Renauds death was also confirmed in a phone interview with Craig Renaud, who was not with him in Ukraine at the time.
He said his brother was working for the television and film division of Time magazine on a series about refugees around the world called Tipping Point.
Brent was in the region working on a Time Studios project focused on the global refugee crisis, the editor-in-chief of Time, Edward Felsenthal, and the president of Time and Time Studios, Ian Orefice, said in a statement. Our hearts are with all of Brents loved ones.
Initial news reports described Renaud as a reporter for The New York Times after photographs appeared on Facebook showing his body and a Times press badge. The Times posted a statement on Twitter saying that the press badge had been issued many years ago and that Renaud had not been on an assignment for the paper.
Brent Anthony Renaud was born Oct. 13, 1971, in Memphis, Tennessee, and he grew up in Little Rock, Arkansas. His father, Louis, was a salesman, and his mother, Georgann Freasier, was a social worker.
In addition to his brother, Renaud is survived by his parents and a sister, Michele Purifoy.
This article originally appeared in
The New York Times.