IRPIN, Ukraine (NBC) – An American journalist has been killed in Ukraine while producing a story about refugees, and the US state department has confirmed his death.
An American journalist who was traveling with Renaud was also shot, wounded in the lower back.
Ukraine’s interior ministry says 50-year-old Brent Renaud died in Irpin… A suburb of Kyiv. Renaud is a native of Little Rock, Ark. According to an IMDb biography, Renaud and his brother Crain founded the Little Rock Film Festival and the Arkansas Motion Picture Institute.
Journalist Juan Arredondo, of New Jersey and Columbia, is an adjunct professor at Columbia University, and an award-winning photojournalist who was working with Renaud. Arrendondo talked about what happened as he was being treated at a hospital in Kyiv. He said they both were shot while traveling in a vehicle after they had stopped at a Russian checkpoint.
Arrendondo said they crossed the first bridge in Irpin, and planned to film other refugees leaving. Someone offered to take them to the other bridge, so they got into a car. As they crossed the checkpoint, Arrendondo said, “They started shooting at us.”
So the driver turned around, and Arrendondo said, “they kept shooting – there was two of us, my friend is Brent Renaud, and he’s been shot and left behind.”
Arredondo said he saw Renaud being shot “on the neck,” and then they got separated and he was brought to the hospital, though he wasn’t sure if it was by ambulance.
A hospital official said Arredondo is expected to recover.
Renaud won numerous awards for documentary filmmaking… Including a Peabody and two Dupont Columbia journalism awards.
