Reporter Suspended for Berating Senior Citizen Who Fatally Shot Suspected Burglars

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Journalism at it's finest...

I love the tactic of the removal of the news video. Too embarassing? Heh.



Reporter Suspended for Berating Senior Citizen Who Fatally Shot Suspected Burglars

By Terry Trippany | October 18, 2007 - 09:19 ET

James Walton has been through a lot recently. The 70 year old senior citizen shot and killed 2 suspected burglars within a three week span at his business and place of residence in Dallas. This prompted a Fox News reporter to track him down and berate him on camera until he broke down and cried.(h/t Malkin, Riehl World View)


[align=left]The reporter, Rebecca Aguilar, tracked the man down in a parking lot where he was buying a new shot gun to replace the one that was confiscated by police as evidence in the latest incident. From there she followed the man to his car where she stood over him and berated him with questions such as "Are you a trigger happy person? Is that what you wanted to do; shoot to kill?" (video here).
[/align]
The Dallas police are defending Walton's actions. According to some reports Mr. Walton has made over 40 calls to police concerning break ins.

Fox News has removed the video of the report and suspended the reporter in response to angry viewer outrage at her demeanor.

Apparently the thought that a person has the right to defend himself and his family on his own property seems to be a foreign concept to some people. The reporter was not merely reporting on the story when she tracked down Mr. Walton, she was accusing him of being a trigger happy person that enjoys shooting people. This is ridiculous. Standing over the man and berating him in such a thug like manner was more than the man could take.

Rebecca Aguilar was just named one of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists' Broadcast Journalists of the Year.

Terry Trippany is the editor and publisher of Webloggin



http://newsbusters.org/blogs/terry-trippany/2007/10/18/reporter-suspended-berating-senior-citizen-who-fatally-shot-suspecte



[align=left]Note: the video is no longer on youtube.com:[/align]

[align=left]"This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by KDFW FOX 4 TV "[/align]

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Video not available, but it looks like she was blocking him from closing his car door so he couldn't leave. I hope this guy gets a nice settlement out of Fox News.

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It would be nice to think that this could open up a public debate on how defending yourself from criminals is not like stalking game, but a last ditch act to protect oneself from predators who CHOOSE to live lives as parasites of society at large.

A burglar is not some normal, innocent guy who just made a bad decision. It is a committed criminal who has planned a series of criminal acts regardless of who gets hurt.

At the very least I hope this "journalist" gets wrung through every possible media meatgrinder for trying to make a buck and expand her career by publicly abusing the VICTIM in this crime story.

She has obviously confused the fact that a dead criminal is not the "victim" but the outcome of justice. Justice is not necessarily what the court orders, sometimes it is just what happens to evildoers.

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Is this a Fox News reporter or a Fox channel News Reporter

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http://www.breitbart.tv/html/6905.html
Here is a good link, though the video makes me want to puke.

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Is Rebecca here legally?

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longwatch wrote:

http://www.breitbart.tv/html/6905.html
Here is a good link, though the video makes me want to puke.

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404 Not found

I pray some are twigging the various Fox-flacks on this - O'Reilly, SLimbaugh, Hannity, Boortz...

Either we are equal or we are not. Good people ought to be armed where they will, with wits and guns and the truth. NRA/GOP KMA$$

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KDFW reporter. They've suspended her. kdfw@kdfwfox4.com

Either we are equal or we are not. Good people ought to be armed where they will, with wits and guns and the truth. NRA/GOP KMA$$

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Doug Huffman wrote:

longwatch wrote:

http://www.breitbart.tv/html/6905.html
Here is a good link, though the video makes me want to puke.

Click to expand...

404 Not found

Click to expand...

If you click on it, there is more after the .html in your address bar. You can just copy paste the address as you see it, or hopefully click here:

http://www.breitbart.tv/html/6905.html

Be warned that the audio is not level at all and you will need to turn your volume up/down significantly a few times.

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longwatch wrote:

http://www.breitbart.tv/html/6905.html
Here is a good link, though the video makes me want to puke.

Click to expand...

That's a very good link. Thanks longwatch. The Breitbart analysis is pretty darn good. It made me consider somet things I hadn't thought of.

Overall, of course,both KDFW-TV and Aguilar are guilty of atrocious sensationalizing and unfair treatment of the old man.

Plus, the station, by censoring access to the video not only on its own website but by also having the spot pulled from Google....is showing a ham-handed attempt at eliminating the evidence. Why do they do it? Because they can. Such is the way of censors--whether at a cable news station, the government or a public discussion forum. Hide the evidence....restrict access to what you don't want the sunlight to illuminate....such is the way of the censors....

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If/when Rebecca is fired, she'll certainly find an open position in the Baton Rouge media community, who will welcome her with open arms (no pun intended).

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This reporter did a story on a guy in Dallas, who killed a burglar. As SOP, the police took his gun after the incident, as part of their investigation. He apparantly didn't want to do an interview with the newsies, understandably so.

The day the cops took his only gun, he drove to an Academy story to buy another gun (for home/business defense), and that reporter ambushed him as he was walking out of the store with his new gun, essentially villifying him to all the world, branding him as a trigger-happy gun nut.


youtube.com/watch?v=2rIZhzfTZTA

She was subsequently suspended her for that report, today they finally fired her.

:celebrate

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why do some people think we are not suposet to protect ourselfs?never will understand that

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Somewhat satisfying, I hope Mr. Walton gets some satisfaction.

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i'd just have pushed her out of hte way or close the door on her.

i did'nt see anything to out ragious but then again maybe the original video had more the one i seen was with the idiot guy and girl talking.. which btw needs to be normalized their discussion is way way louder then the actual video clip.

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Bulldog1967 wrote:

This reporter did a story on a guy in Dallas, who killed a burglar. As SOP, the police took his gun after the incident, as part of their investigation. He apparantly didn't want to do an interview with the newsies, understandably so.

The day the cops took his only gun, he drove to an Academy story to buy another gun (for home/business defense), and that reporter ambushed him as he was walking out of the store with his new gun, essentially villifying him to all the world, branding him as a trigger-happy gun nut.


youtube.com/watch?v=2rIZhzfTZTA

She was subsequently suspended her for that report, today they finally fired her.

:celebrate

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An article on the firing. http://unclebarky.com/dfw_files/3e64c705d460bf76ce5ee3a44b19ac0d-583.html

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I heard she was fired today. Was listening to NRA news and they mentioned it.

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One reason I question the motive of any news agency and what theyput out.

Happy I got to see the video. She had an agenda..... she was looking to create a sensational story to win an award in badgering senior citizens.


Both men clearly should not have been on this mans property. Having to climb a 8 foot high fence.... there is no mistake that you are not welcome. I am sure there were many more that stole from him in the past too.

Not sure I really agree with shooting a man over stealing stuff from a salvage yard but if the law in Texas says you can do it... so be it. The people are aware that they can legally be killed for stepping on the property of another and that is a risk they take when they climb a 8 foot fence.

I am pleased that they took action against the reporter. What she did was clearly wrong!! This guy did not go out on the street and shoot people. He shot men trespassing on his property trying to steal from him.

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nofoa wrote:

I heard she was fired today. Was listening to NRA news and they mentioned it.

Click to expand...

followed by

LEO 229 wrote:

One reason I question the motive of any news agency and what theyput out.

Click to expand...

Maybe he finally gets it and maybe he doesn't.

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Aguilar said that most street reporters are expected to "go out there and ask the hard questions. As journalists, shouldn't we able to do the same thing on the inside? We shouldn't live in fear. Because once you put fear into a reporter, how can you expect that person to pursue the truth, pursue the facts? We cannot as reporters be Jekyll and Hyde, one person on the inside, another person on the outside. Those plantation days are over."

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Her language reveals her for what she is. Her victim mentality makes her incapable of understanding that she is being held to the standards of normal decency and respect. My guess is that her utter inability to comprehend that she did anything remotely wrong is the reason for her dismissal. To let her continue without such an acknowledgement means just waiting for her to do it again and likely push the limits of decent behavior even further.