"The reporting is really remarkable — it's detailed, it's in depth, it's cinematic....This book is a triumph. You should all get it." —David Grann, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Killers of the Flower Moon and The Wager
A high-octane true-crime story, Bear Witness follows two Christians who refuse to let fear or conventional wisdom stand in the way of their altruistic mission.
The vast majority of Hondurans would have never dared to set foot in Nueva Suyapa, a mountainside barrio that was under the thumb of a gang whose bravado and cruelty were the stuff of legend. But that is precisely where Kurt Ver Beek, an American sociologist, and Carlos Hernández, a Honduran schoolteacher, chose to raise their families. Kurt and Carlos were best friends who had committed their lives to helping the poor, and when they accepted that nobody else—not the police, not the prosecutors, not the NGOs—was ever going to protect their neighbors from the incessant violence they suffered, they decided to take matters into their own hands.
In magnetic prose, journalist Ross Halperin chronicles how these two do-gooders became quasi-vigilantes and charged into a series of life-and-death battles, not just with this one gang, but also with forces far more dangerous, including a notorious tycoon who commanded about a thousand armed men and a police force whose wickedness defied credulity. Kurt and Carlos would eventually get catapulted from obscurity to being famous power players who had access to the backrooms where legislators, ambassadors, and presidents pulled strings. Their efforts made some of the most violent neighborhoods on earth safer and arguably improved a profoundly corrupt government. But they were forced to compromise their principles in order to make all that happen, and furthermore, they acquired a large number of outraged critics and precipitated some heartbreaking collateral damage.
A remarkable and dangerous feat of reportage, Bear Witness shows what happens when altruism, faith, and an obsession with justice are pushed to the extreme.
“This gripping account—unbelievable, were it not true—of the transformative work of a small, unassuming nonprofit tells the story of what happened in one of the most violent communities in the world when it asked a question that had escaped everybody from the Honduran government to the US Department of State to the United Nations: What if we make the institutions of justice actually work for the people?” —David M. Kennedy
About the Author
Ross Halperin attended Harvard University and worked under Mark A. R. Kleiman, one of the world’s leading criminal-justice scholars. He started reporting this story in 2018 and has since spent much of his time in Honduras.
Praise For…
Fascinating. Halperin captures the other side of the immigrant crisis — a world that few outsiders see.... This is an unexpected thriller starring a mild-mannered Christian from the midwest who teaches study-abroad students and runs an NGO.... Halperin tells the story with an immersive narrative voice reminiscent of Tracy Kidder, allowing the reader to peer over the shoulder of people trying to fight the good fight in near-impossible conditions. What’s more, he pulls no punches in describing the compromises, ethical transgressions and shadow activity in which one must engage to make change in a basically lawless country. — Katherine Corcoran - New York Times
A compelling tale and the perfect doorway into the complex inner workings of the poorest country in Latin America, where people struggle for power and the rule of law is weak. Halperin’s reporting is prodigious; Nueva Suyapa and its residents appear on the book’s pages not as some faceless mass but mothers and fathers and sons and assassins and students and extortionists and sometimes several of those things all at the same time, always just trying to get by. — Carl Hoffman - Washington Post
In this gripping work of investigative journalism, Halperin examines the risks, sacrifices, and criticisms these unlikely saviors endured in making their neighborhood a safer place to raise a family . . . Halperin’s skillful reporting and insight and his own risk-taking make Ver Beek and Hernández's story unforgettable. — Booklist
A breathtaking account of one of the most ambitious civil society projects in recent memory: the Association for a More Just Society....Halperin rightly focuses his book on ASJ’s founders and co-leaders, Kurt Ver Beek and Carlos Hernández, as the two staunchly evangelical activists wade into the criminal morass that has left Honduras reeling for decades....The ethical and legal quandaries they cross in achieving this success are myriad and dizzyingly complex. — Steven Dudley, Co-Director of InSight Crime and author of MS-13
Kurt Ver Beek and Carlos Hernández are possibly the bravest people in the world and among the few who truly understand how homicide works. . . . Ross Halperin, a reporter who listens with his whole mind, is the one to tell [their story]. He’s gone deep and found the insights that matter. Bear Witness will be required reading. — Jill Leovy, New York Times bestselling author of Ghettoside
This riveting book reads like a thriller—two friends trying to prevent murders in one of the most dangerous places on earth. But it’s a true story, about not only the extreme danger they put themselves in, but also the nauseating moral quandaries they faced. . . . In Ross Halperin’s nuanced, sharp-eyed, empathetic story, there are no clean hands. — Larissa MacFarquhar, New Yorker staff writer and author of Strangers Drowning
Ross Halperin’s deep dive into one of the worst narco states in Latin America is poignant and chilling. . . . Halperin’s understated prose is mesmerizing, and Bear Witness is a cautionary tale about where politics, corruption, and religion collide. — Sally Denton, author of The Colony
Superbly reported, rife with vivid human and physical detail, Bear Witness brings us novelistically close to the unlikely pair of heroic justice fighters at its heart. . . . I so admire Ross Halperin, the young journalist who has written this important, unforgettable book. — Francisco Goldman, Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of Monkey Boy
[A] gripping, gut-wrenching story of the courageous struggle of a small organization against the powers of darkness. . . . It’s a story of undaunted patience, bravery, faith, and hope in the face of threats, violence, and stonewalling. Take this and be moved and inspired. — Nicholas Wolterstorff, Noah Porter Professor Emeritus of Philosophical Theology, Yale University
The beautifully written Bear Witness is essential reading for those concerned about the far too many communities—be they in Tegucigalpa or in Chicago—where people live in fear both of each other and of their government. — David M. Kennedy, author of Don’t Shoot
