Leo Ryan

Who was Leo Ryan?

Leo Joseph Ryan, Jr. was an American teacher and politician. He served as a U.S. Representative as a member of the Democratic Party. He represented California's 11th congressional district from 1973 until he was shot to death in Guyana by members of the Peoples Temple, shortly before the Jonestown Massacre in 1978. He is arguably the only sitting member of the U.S. House of Representatives to have been assassinated in office.

After the Watts Riots of 1965, Assemblyman Ryan took a job as a substitute school teacher to investigate and document conditions in the area. In 1970, he investigated the conditions of California prisons by being held, under a pseudonym, as an inmate in Folsom Prison, while presiding as chairman of the Assembly committee that oversaw prison reform. During his time in Congress, Ryan traveled to Newfoundland to investigate the practice of seal hunting.

Ryan was also famous for vocal criticism of the lack of Congressional oversight of the Central Intelligence Agency, and authored the Hughes–Ryan Amendment, passed in 1974. He was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal posthumously in 1983.