Fox News forced to apologise after mistakenly reporting Baltimore police shooting

Reporter claimed he saw Baltimore police shoot fleeing black man

Shepherd Smith was forced to apologise, saying "What's happened is, er, what's happened is we screwed up"

For about an hour on Monday it appeared Baltimore may again descend into chaos after Fox News reported that police had shot a black man who was fleeing the scene in the area near where riots took place last week.

But shortly after reporting the shooting, Fox News anchor Shepard Smith was forced to apologise when police categorically denied the shooting.

Baltimore police quickly countered and posted a number of tweets denying the Fox report. One said, “The reports of a shooting at North Ave/ Pennsylvania Ave are unfounded. Officers have arrested a man with a gun.”

After the police denial, Mr Smith, the anchor, issued this apology.

“Sounds like what happened is we screwed up…. Mike Tobin thought he saw somebody get shot,” Mr Smith said on his show. “And there was a gun and a patient on a stretcher and there is would a woman who said she saw the cop gun him down and there’s going to be violence and all the rest of that. And what we have is nothing. And the truth is, according to police, there is no gunshot victim.”

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