Fox News anchor Shepard Smith apologized to viewers on Monday for an erroneous report by the network of a shooting by Baltimore police.
Fox News reporter Mike Tobin reported firsthand that at approximately 2.45 ET “a guy running from the cops” at an intersection he characterized as the epicenter of recent unrest in the wake of the death of Freddie Gray was shot by an officer.
“As he was running away, that officer drew his weapon and fired and struck the individual who was running away,” Tobin said. “It was a young, black male, and [from] what we saw on the sidewalk, as the crime scene unfolded there, there was a revolver laying on the ground.”
However, the Baltimore Police Department tweeted around 45 minutes after the reported incident that “reports of a man being shot at North and Pennsylvania Ave are NOT true. Officers have arrested a man for a handgun at the location.”
Tobin claimed to have witnessed the incident personally at the time. “He ran right in front of us. I never saw the individual turn and do anything I would consider an aggressive act, but we did see the officer draw his weapon and I counted one gunshot.”
Moments later, however, Fox News reporter Leland Vittert solicited a statement from a Baltimore Police officer who refuted Tobin’s account. Evidently a man was arrested for possessing a handgun, which discharged when he dropped it.
Smith immediately took over the broadcast in studio to acknowledge the error, saying, “Sounds like what happened is… we screwed up … Mike Tobin thought he saw somebody get shot. And there was a gun, and there was a patient on a stretcher … and what we have is nothing.”
See Smith’s apology below, followed by Tobin’s original report.