https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/pain-anger-and-sadness-peace-corps-under-scrutiny-after-worker-kills-woman-in-africa/ar-AAYfQwI?bk=1&ocid
An American Peace Corps employee in Tanzania in 2019 killed a mother of three and injured two others in a series of crashes after a night of drinking.
USA TODAY has been unearthing documents and accounts of the incident involving high-ranking Peace Corps employee John Peterson. Within hours of the incident, the American was rushed onto a plane by the Peace Corps and U.S. Embassy staff and out of the country. Tanzanian and U.S. authorities have been unable to file charges from the incident.
Peterson was suspended from his duties and remained on the payroll for more than a year after the incident before he resigned.
USA TODAY has interviewed dozens of sources familiar with the Aug. 24, 2019 incident, the fallout and the call for reform. Since USA TODAY published its exclusive report in December, former Peace Corps members have called for change at the agency and raised thousands of dollars for the deceased woman's family.
The newspaper has filed more than 20 Freedom of Information Act requests about the incident and continues to probe who made key decisions about Peterson’s treatment.
So far, the State Department has been silent about its role in medically evacuating the American under its purview at the foreign post.
We invite you to come back to this page again and again and stay connected as we peel back layers of this tragic episode about the Peace Corps’ aspirational mission of promoting “world peace and friendship” and new questions about whether those in charge of fulfilling that promise have done so at the expense of the communities they and the agency’s volunteers are meant to serve.
John Peterson left Tanzania for medical care the same day he killed a woman with his car. Since then, officials from the U.S. Department of State have declined to release any information about the fatal incident involving the high-ranking Peace Corps employee. Yet USA TODAY found agency staff have been closely involved, including helping arrange for Peterson’s departure from the country and investigating the incident alongside the Peace Corps Office of Inspector General.
In 2019, John Peterson struck and killed a Tanzanian woman with his car while a sex worker was in the passenger seat. He wasn't charged.But USA TODAY confirmed that the former Peace Corps employee, who avoided prosecution after killing a mother of three in a car crash, is the subject of a federal watchdog’s inquiry into whether he had a history of hiring sex workers overseas.
https://peacecorpsworldwide.org/peace-corps-apcd-killed-a-woman-in-africa-the-u-s-helped-him-escape-prosecution/
The watchdog’s summary, along with USA TODAY’s reporting, shows the events began after Peterson drank an “undetermined amount of alcohol” at a bar, picked up a sex worker and drove her in his diplomatic-plated Toyota RAV4 to his government-leased home. The neighborhood, known as the Msasani Peninsula, is frequented by expats and wealthy Tanzanians. The area has embassies and popular bars but also pockets of shanty housing.
Peterson paid the woman for sex, according to the inspector general. Around 5 a.m., he drove her back to the area where he had picked her up and, though it was a clear and dry morning, struck a bystander on the way. The woman’s injuries were severe but not life-threatening. A group of angry onlookers gathered, and when Peterson took off — with the sex worker still in the passenger seat — motorcycle drivers chased close behind.
He plowed through a sharp turn and hit Issa as she was setting up her food stand. Peterson kept driving. A short distance later, the sex worker leapt from the moving vehicle and was injured. Eventually, Peterson slammed into a pole and was detained by police.
By the time police made it to Issa, she was dead. Bystanders watched as her body was covered with a cloth.
cant find a pic of peterson except shitty id