WFSB skips important facts in Long Beach, Calif. shooting incident

Just watching WFSB News at about 5:40 p.m. ET and Denise D’Ascenzo was reporting on the home invasion and shooting death of a criminal intruder, a “pregnant” 28-year-old woman in Long Beach, Calif. The video report excluded important facts.

It’s not for me to state if the self-defense shooting was justified or not, but one thing is for certain, WFSB screwed up by completely ignoring multiple important facts in their TV newscast. (Sorry, I do not have the video.)

  1. The two invaders tackled the homeowner when he walked into his home. He suffered a broken collar bone and multiple bruises.
  2. The man was 80-years-old.
  3. At 2:40 p.m. ET today, the Los Angeles County Coroner’s office confirmed the woman was not pregnant. Three hours later WFSB still suggested she may have been pregnant in D’Ascenzo’s report. (Clarification: It’s not clear if the coroner’s office released this information at 2:40 p.m. ET or 2:40 p.m. PT.)
  4. The man’s home had been burglarized multiple times in the past, and the two criminals may have been familiar with the home. In-other-words, they may have been the criminals who burglarized the home in the past.

Maybe a few of you will forward my post to WFSB?

Why would WFSB news editors skip over the part where the homeowner was beaten up? Even their online post – taken from an Associated Press story – lets readers know this.

Long Beach police Chief Jim McDonnell says the homeowner fired on 28-year-old Andrea Miller in an alley after she and another suspect assaulted him in his home and broke his collarbone.

You tell me … again… Why would WFSB skip over the part where the homeowner was tackled, bruised up and had is collarbone broke?

When it comes to whether this is a justified shooting or not, it looks like – under California law – this was not a justified self-defense shooting since reports indicate the homeowner shot the woman when she was outside the home fleeing down an ally. Reports indicate he grabbed the gun and they ran when he started shooting in the home, but then the homeowner followed outside and shot at the man and woman again as they were “fleeing.”

I’m going to suggest the woman may have been hit during the first round of gun fire in the home and she collapsed outside in the ally. Could that be possible? This is all speculation, and we won’t know facts – even though the media has interviewed the homeowner – until the official report is available.

What have we learned? Don’t break into other people’s homes and beat up people. Don’t be surprised if homeowners start shooting to stop the threat in their home. Also – if you watch the video interview of the homeowner – you best realize 80-year-old men don’t like to be messed with. I get the impression this guy had enough of the bull shit.

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Steve McGough

Steve's a part-time conservative blogger. Steve grew up in Connecticut and has lived in Washington, D.C. and the Bahamas. He resides in Connecticut, where he’s comfortable six months of the year.

18 Comments

  1. Vizionmusic on July 25, 2014 at 7:16 pm

    WSFB is a VERY liberal station..(aren’t they all???) Denise D. LOOKS like a ‘conservative’ but is in point of fact…NOT…



  2. bien-pensant on July 25, 2014 at 7:19 pm

    Well, Steve, liberals never let the facts get in the way of their narrative. CBS has long reported with a definite left bias.

    When I first heard about this the woman was reportedly many months pregnant and was fifty feet away from the murderous homeowner. The shooting was related as wanton, capricious and perpetrated by a madman with a gun.

    How’s that for relating unbiased reporting? The ill informed person was glad (giddy?) to relate this to me as he knew of my interest in firearms and it fit his “all guns are bad” meme.

    As a related self-defense story, have you noticed how the news stories or the Israel-Hamas conflict never shows armed Palestinians? No pictorial portrayals of RPGs, ubiquitous AK-47s or rockets being fired at Israel. Or, that the tunnels are under civilian homes, mosques and hospitals?

    Hmmmmm, liberal bias, anyone?



  3. stinkfoot on July 26, 2014 at 4:45 am

    Forward this to WFSB for what purpose?… Clearly (to me, anyway) MSM couldn’t give a flying *f* what you or I think. The bast way to combat this nonsense is to build general support of a boycott against it. As has already been pointed out, the objective has to do with pushing an agenda- using selected factoids to do so. The rest of the whole truth gets suppressed and they will embellish if not outright lie to fill in the rest of the narrative.



  4. Lynn on July 26, 2014 at 8:13 am

    Leave it to me to find humor in a tragic event, but who “observed” first, that the woman was pregnant? As a woman, I am incredulous! Was it a reporter who arrived on the crime scene, a nosy neighbor, the policeman who responded? Did they administer a pregnancy test before they commented?



    • Steve McGough on July 26, 2014 at 10:51 am

      Lynn, the criminal asked the homeowner not to shoot because she was pregnant. That’s what the homeowner said. Either she was lying, or the homeowner’s statement is not correct for some reason. It’s possible the man heard her incorrectly.



    • Lynn on July 26, 2014 at 10:06 pm

      Thanks, I am so glad to know that a woman who would be bringing a child into this world would not be stupid or callous enough to invade someone’s home.



  5. MrEd 48 on July 26, 2014 at 11:27 am

    Newscasting has become entertainment rather than reporting facts. When was the last time you heard them refer to Hamas as a Muslim Terrorist Group, when, in fact, that is exactly what they are? And their main objective is to rid the world of non-muslim people, period. Go break into one of their houses and see how long it would take for them to blow your head off, pregnant or not. If you keep playing with fire expect to eventually get burned so stop robbing 80 yr old people.



  6. johnboy111 on July 26, 2014 at 9:30 pm

    coming or going..you in my house you should get shot???



  7. MF on July 27, 2014 at 9:28 am

    OK let’s put a little past newsroom media experience on the post to iron some back-end stuff out (though don’t get me wrong, great headline!)

    The stories posted online and the stories grabbed/used for newscasts are likely from 2 separate feeds/systems, even if the stories are from the same source (AP in this case). Newscast side needs something that can move quickly/work/load within a teleprompter system especially if something needs to be thrown in SUPER fast.

    At minimum on this laziness happened by a producer keeping an older story in and not checking for an updated version (depending on the newsfeed program used, as some I remember used to be amazingly slow on some updates that “everyone else already had.”). Being “it’s from the AP” and in California as well would tune it out in terms of it’s priority within the newscast.

    Next step would be the editing down of the AP story either for brevity/quick hit, or the one sent in was too long of a read on the feed. That part can only be determined by what the story was originally and what was edited down – there’s some nuances as to how one can edit an AP story down, some of which are integral. Naturally that could lead out important facts…but again it’s an AP…



    • bien-pensant on July 27, 2014 at 9:43 am

      O.K…., So… where and when does the liberal stamp get put on a story?



    • Lynn on July 28, 2014 at 8:51 pm

      I’d like to know that too. Anyone, anyone



    • bien-pensant on July 28, 2014 at 2:01 pm

      … and, who assigns victimhood?
      In this story, the woman is portrayed as the victim.
      What happened to the real victim of the incident, the 80-year-old man?



    • Lynn on July 28, 2014 at 9:00 pm

      Well we sure can’t let the media decide for us. It’s up to us to keep our moral compass.



    • bien-pensant on July 29, 2014 at 8:06 am

      These may seem to be naive questions but, I asked hoping to spur discussion.
      I hope other people will add their thoughts as this whole subject effects us all. How stories are framed and presented really does matter. It’s not just “who, what, where, when, how and why” anymore, it’s the molded opinion of the writer, the politics of the particular media organization(s), and the inflections and posture of the “news reader” (the talking head) or the subtle verbiage and nouns used to describe events in print that signals opinionated slant, i.e. is it terrorist or freedom fighter? Illegal immigrant or refugee? And so on…



    • Lynn on July 29, 2014 at 8:27 am

      BP they are definitely not naive questions. Years ago the Hartford Courant, yes I know that they are now the Courant, but that is how long ago it was. They would publish a statement yearly from the editorial board and how they made decisions about what stories to publish and how to cover, etc. It was fascinating and I would really love to read one now. But, I have to admit, I haven’t read a Courant in years. My husband & I buy the Sun edition only, we throw the whole paper away except for the Travel section. He works the Crossword Puzzle by Merl Regan and I do the Cryptogram. Sorry, but I just can’t read their biased articles, that is not a newspaper’s job to interpret news for me. I used to read the entire Hartford Courant, but stopped when they became so biased. Maybe Zak J. on the Editorial Board will change things.



    • bien-pensant on July 30, 2014 at 8:59 am

      No matter what form it presents itself as, the “news” is merely a vehicle for advertising. Empty the Sunday paper of slick ads and coupons, cut out the ads inside and what you are left with is few “stories” and a lot of liberal opinion.
      Newspapers and magazines are so twentieth century.
      Spin is key; control the message, control the narrative, serve the meme.



  8. Dimsdale on July 29, 2014 at 9:45 am

    C’mon! They need the extra time for “trending now” and all important Kardashian/Bieber updates!



  9. JollyRoger on July 31, 2014 at 9:19 am

    This poor girl was just trying to LiveThewage#, like all of the Democrats recently. Beans, rice, spam… and she was callously mowed down by the most unassuming of all, an 80 year old angry white male- clinging bitterly to his guns and money… This is emblematic of just how entrenched this War-on-Women goes!
    Can I get an amen Sammy?



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