Fox News apologizes for false report of police shooting protester

Fox News apologizes for false report of police shooting protester

Fox News apologizes for erroneously reporting the shooting of a man in Baltimore.

Fox News has often been criticized for being inaccurate. Now the news network is apologizing for reporting an incorrect story in Baltimore.

The death of Freddie Gray at the hands of police has caused turmoil in the city of Baltimore. The riots and protests about police brutality of African-American men have attracted almost 24-hour coverage from cable news, including Fox News.

Correspondent Mike Tobin reported that police in Baltimore shot an African-American man.

“About 2:45 we saw a guy running from the cops right at the intersection of North and Pennsylvania where the epicenter of the unrest here,” said Tobin.

“According to our team there . . . an officer shot that man you see there on the stretcher. We are hearing conflicted reports on local scanners there. It’s very early, and Fox News cannot confirm exactly what happened,” said Tobin.

“As he was running away, that officer drew his weapon and fired and struck the individual who was running away. He was a young black male and what we saw on the sidewalk as the crime scene unfolded over there, there was a revolver on the ground,” added Tobin.

Fox News anchor Shep Smith soon reported that no such incident took place.

“As it turned out, nobody was shot,” said Smith . “The latest information from police is a man was approached, and the man ran from police while carrying a weapon. As the man ran, the man fell or his weapon dropped or something that’s still in the investigative process. A gun went off.

“Police say the gun that went off was the gun that was being carried by the man who was running […] The man who was being pursued and presumably had the weapon has been taken to a hospital out of an abundance of caution. And police tell us that there are no shooting victims. For the errors we made here, we are deeply sorry,” said Smith.

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