CBS, NBC News Retract Reports Identifying Washington Navy Yard Shooting Suspect

Oops

Reason

Up to three shooters have killed at least six people and injured eight in the Washington Navy Yards, with police reporting at least one shooter dead.  President Obama called the incident a "cowardly act" in remarks made earlier today, promising justice in "yet another mass shooting." Now there's been yet another person wrongly identified as a mass shooter in the wake of such a shooting.

From Politico:

CBS News and NBC News retracted reports about the identification of the Washington Navy Yard shooter on Monday, just minutes after each network reported that the suspect in question was Navy chief petty officer named Rollie Chance.

CBS's John Miller reported that Chance was a suspect before 1 p.m. on Monday. NBC News later reported the same information and continued to do so past 1 p.m., even after Miller reported that the initial reports about Chance were wrong.

You can be first, but you have to be right.

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Comments

[DJF]

I am betting its a white guy in a white van.

[playa manhattan]

I bet the administration is hoping so, so they can finally label him a true terrorist. Otherwise, workplace violence.

[Brian D]

Awesome, gun control hand-wringing can make a comeback and distract everyone from the phony scandals going on.

[Pro Libertate]

Pointless. The guns have been there all along. If there are more mass/multiple shootings today--which there may not be--it's not the availability of guns.

[playa manhattan]

I'm thinking that any more mass shootings today are going to be along the lines of the Christopher Dorner debacle.

[Drake]

Never been there, but every base I've ever been on is a gun-free, or at least an ammo-free zone.

[Michael S. Langston]

Yep - and in the Army, even if well trained, married, and living off post - anyone below an E4 is supposed to lock up their firearms in the unit arms vault - only able to use them when properly checked out.

Really the only people on post with weapons consistently on them I think would be the MPs. & I believe their ROE are "don't" (or at least they were).

[John]

Can't these fuckers ever learn? It is not hard, don't report something until you know it is true. Every time something like this happens, the initial media reports are completely wrong. How about you shut the fuck up until you know something for sure?

[Pro Libertate]

It's simple. Consumers don't hold them accountable. They don't say, "Hey, CBS was full of shit last time, so I'm watching something else."

This problem is not limited to news.

[John]

Yes. CBS news should have ceased to exist after the Rather memos debacle. But they go merrily on. And worse still, the media covers up for each other so much, them getting things wrong or just making shit up is never a story. They just go on like nothing happened and no one ever mentions it.

[kinnath]

http://stateofthemedia.org/fil.....e-2001.png

I don't know for sure, but losing 40% of you viewership over the last 30 years probably indicates a loss of confidence.

The problem is the 60% that is left likes the shit the news media puts out.

[tarran]

If I were running a news organization, I would mock my competitors for putting bad information out. Write articles describing the penalties for liber etc while tweaking the shit out of them.

The Tarran News Network: We get it right!.

[John]

I would too. But the media is too tribal for that. They never really go after one another. They just cover each other's ass.

[Pro Libertate]

It's possible to be early and admit that the information is unverified and not be a piece of shit, but naming names and being wrong is pretty bad. Oh, say, sorry for making people think you were a murderer rather than a hero, Mr. Jewell.

[robc]

I still want to know when the fuck Atlanta is going to put up the Jewell statue in Centennial Park.

[jesse.in.mb]

I think TNN is already taken. Maybe TaNN?

[sarcasmic]

Was I the only one who read "while twerking the shit out of them"?

[playa manhattan]

I am now. Thanks!

[tarran]

The Twerking News Network would be an awesome band name.

That is all.

[Loki]

"And now, we turn to our senior political correspondant, Miley Cyrus, who's at the White House covering a press conference. Miley?"

*cuts to scene of Miley Cyrus grinding on press secretary Jay Carney*

[kinnath]

Miley is not THAT stupid.

[Lord Humungus]

You leave Miley alone! *runs sobbing out of room*

[Loki]

I'll just leave this here.

[Jordan]

President Obama called the incident a "cowardly act" in remarks made earlier today, promising justice in "yet another mass shooting."

That pile of corpses already has Obama rock-hard.

[Killazontherun]

He's under the delusion that stacking them up and speechifying over them makes him seem taller than the moral midget he is.

[Rasilio]

Not to mention that attacking a military installation, regardless of motivation is hardly the definition of cowardly

[DRM]

"Military installation"? It's a fucking office building, not an encampment in a war zone.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Truly there's no gun-friendlier place than a Navy base in the most anti-gun polity in America.

[playa manhattan]

A lot of people don't understand gun control in the military. Some of my more liberal "friends" were making that argument for Ft Hood. They said "See, even all of those soldiers with machine guns couldn't stop the shooter!"

[fish]

Some of my more liberal "friends" were making that argument for Ft Hood.

My suggestion is to find a brighter group of friends!

[playa manhattan]

The air quotes were because I wouldn't voluntarily interact with them outside of my place of employment.

[Lord Humungus]

and by machine gun we mean submachine assault rifle.

[CE]

It's a machine, isn't it?

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

That's an especially egregious error in light of the fact that the three-star spokesgeneral said to reporters "as a matter of practice, we don't carry weapons here, this is our home."

I mean, I heard the guy say it on the news.

[Killazontherun]

as a matter of practice, we don't carry weapons here, this is our home.

Spokesgenerals are the biggest pussies in the services. The only place they can shine as they have no useful skill sets (see Colin Powell). 'This is our home.' Yeah, so what? That is where I keep all of my guns that are not on loan to the henchmen. There's a rifle in the umbrella stand by the front door. The ammo is in a top draw that can only be accessed by a switch in the counter beside it so little buddy and intruders can't get into it. Takes me four seconds to fully arm it once the rifle is my hand.

[Killazontherun]

The only place they can shine as they have no useful skill sets is to be pr flunkies

[playa manhattan]

I take pride in being fully digital. Enter the right code into the keypad and an 18" street sweeper is ready to go.

But fuck, you are way more devious. The umbrella stand?

[Killazontherun]

Yup, I love the look on the face of house guests who happen to notice it. It also conveniently prevents little buddy from being able to grab it, as it has to be slid through the top.

[Michael S. Langston]

Um Colin Powell was lite Col in charge of infantry units in Vietnam and well decorated.

I find some of the things he's done since then to be incredibly wrong headed, but in no way were his useful skill sets limited to Spokesperson.

[albo]

I think MSNBC just reported that the suspect is named "Col. Mustard," and is now holed-up in the conservatory.

[sarcasmic]

Mean Mister Mustard sleeps in the park
Shaves in the dark trying to save paper

[Jordan]

Nobody needs a candlestick!

[db]

With an high capacity military style assault candlestick, no doubt.

[SweatingGin]

Have they had Ho Lee Fuk or Wei Tu Low weigh in on it yet?

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

General Disarray does not take kindly to you mocking the situation with jokes names.

[Lord Humungus]

time for some Corporal Punishment!

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

And some Major Payne.

[Lord Humungus]

no shit, but my son's dentist is named Payne.

Paging Dr. Payne! Double root canal emergency!

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Is his name Illyn?

[SweatingGin]

Professor Chaos will keep him in line.

[db]

This "cowardly act" atuff gets old. Bush used it, Obama uses it...yeah we get it. It is the act of a coward to attack unarmed opponents without warning. It's hard to disagree with that. But the statement itself means nothing. And every attack, be it on a consulate, a military base in Afghanistan, or an office building in D.C. gets the label "cowardly." I've got news, folks: that's how terrorism goes. The terrorists don't care if you call them cowards. They got what they want, which is for you to react in fear and anger.

What would be a "brave attack?" Calling someone out publicly and challenging them to pistols at dawn?

They seem to think that there's some acceptable way of attacking, like making sure the guy is armed and facing you. It's not the Old West, folks. There is no established etiquette for this kind of thing, no matter how many Westerns you watched as a kid.

For that matter, how many Western heroes have ambushed the bad guys? How many U.S. military actions have involved subterfuge and catching the enemy off guard?

[albo]

The "cowardly" remark is for us. It's to make us feel like we're on the right side, that we're better than the shooter. It's simply reassurance.

[Anonymous Coward]

If this shooter had employed a drone, Obama would have sent him a job offer.

[Zeb]

What's more cowardly than using a drone? At least the terrorists had the balls to put their own lives on the line.

[Old Man With Candy]

This was the point I made (albeit far more briefly) in the 24/7 version. But 24/7 is ephemeral, while H&R is eternal.

[CatoTheElder]

What would be a "brave attack?"

Firing cruise missiles from ships, for example, would be an especially brave attack for the US Navy.. Especially if the ships have the world's best air defense systems and are safely outside of the range of the opponent's missile systems.

Drone murders are another example of brave attacks.

[CE]

They even give medals for it.

[Killazontherun]

A feathered hat, tasseled shoes, silk shirt, rapier and an oiled mustache straight out of the Three Musketeers is what they must have in mind. He may have been a villain to gut all of those people before being mowed down in a hail of bullets, but he was a brave one!

[Loki]

They seem to think that there's some acceptable way of attacking, like making sure the guy is armed and facing you.

"If I ever kill you, you'll be awake, you'll be facing me, and you'll be armed."

[Paul.]

It's especially cowardly if the attackers were pro-second amendment types who watch Fox News.

[CatoTheElder]

Such extreme cowardice, however, is highly unlikely. It's something like six-sigma extreme cowardice.

[Loki]

President Obama called the incident a "cowardly act" in remarks made earlier today, promising justice in "yet another mass shooting."

Allow me to translate from shitweasel to English: "I would have preferred another big pile of dead children to stand on and self righteously prattle on about the need for 'common sense' gun restrictions, but I guess a few dead sailors will have to do for now."

[Mike M.]

The Russians clearly think that Putin's editorial riff on "American exceptionalism" is pretty clever and amusing, as some classless Russian jerk is now openly mocking us once again, saying that the Navy Yard shooting is another example of it.

It really sucks having such a pathetically weak embarrassment of a president like we do.

[albo]

Nobody ever fully vetted this guy. The media fell in love at first sight, making the question of his actual competence irrelevant. If Jessica Alba proposed to you, would you even give a crap that she can't cook?

[playa manhattan]

I wouldn't care if I found out she used to be a man.

[BakedPenguin]

This is relevant here.

[albo]

Is that Morena Baccarin? She could have a penis sticking out of her forehead and still be uber hot.

[thom]

Nobody ever fully vetted this guy. The media fell in love at first sight, making the question of his actual competence irrelevant

And the Republicans ran McCain. There's shared blame here.

[Anonymous Coward]

CBS News and NBC News retracted reports about the identification of the Washington Navy Yard shooter on Monday, just minutes after each network reported that the suspect in question was Navy chief petty officer named Rollie Chance.

It's high time to get rid of the "actual malice" standard of defamation as applied to the corporate media.

We live in an age were information can be disseminated to millions with the click of a button. An individual would never escape litigation for such reckless disregard for the truth or a man's reputation.

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

Rollie Chance should still sue. He'll probably get a decent settlement out of it.

[CE]

You mean like Ariel Castro's brothers?

[Anonymous Coward]

When you're the prime suspect, your name and picture are on the front page.

When you're exonerated or cleared, it's not news.

If only they would clear a person's name with the same enthusiasm with which they throw mud on it.

[Bardas Phocas]

Maybe it's a case of workplace violence
or bullying
or bath salts
or Tea baggers who hate wish to enslave black people

[Andrew S.]

NBC's already been running with the workplace violence angle.

[Adam330]

Sequestration related furloughs no doubt!

[Lord Humungus]

http://www.washingtontimes.com.....avy-yar/?1

Authorities have identified the dead shooter as a Navy employee whose work status had been changed earlier this year, a federal government official told the Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak on the record.

I can see the spin coming already...

[tarran]

SEQUESTER!!!!!!!

[Hillary's Clitdong]

If you're such a self-centered lunatic that your response to getting fired is to murder your co-workers, I think it's a good assumption that your firing was justified.

Also, SEQUESTERZ!

[Robert]

Not my bath salts.

[db]

CBS and NBC are just lucky they didn't accuse anyone of fucking sheep.

[General Butt Naked]

Oh man, Dick Marcinko is having an epic "I told you so" moment right now.

[db]

Elaborate, please?

[General Butt Naked]

He was a SEAL commander that ran security checks on naval installations by breaking into them. Supposedly he was able to actually steal a nuclear device at one point. This (obviously) didn't make the people that were the targets very happy and he was set up in some bullshit contractor fraud thing and sent to prison.

He showed that despite a secure outward appearance things like today's massacre are not isolated incidents of lapse.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

He's like Gabriel in one of the Die Hard movies.

[Paul.]

And whenever he found security holes, his commanders would claim he cheated to find them.

[CatoTheElder]

As if an enemy would not cheat to find security holes?

[db]

That would be cowardly.

[db]

That would be cowardly.

[db]

Yeah, that would be cowardly.

[Paul.]

You keep saying that. How cowardly?

[tarran]

IIRC Marcinko said that the killing of OBL was great, but that someone else would step in to take his place.

[Michael S. Langston]

That is likely mistaken - not impossible, but there's a reason there's only a few on top - the ability to promote the idea, built the organization, plan, etc, etc, etc from a central authority takes skills beyond using the Koran as a primer for a theocratic world government.

Not to mention it will likely be difficult to find another fully committed guy with a couple hundred million lying around...

[Mike M.]

By the way, how come the all-powerful, all information hoovering NSA never saw this attack coming? That makes three terrorist attacks now in roughly the last year alone that our snooping government was unable to prevent: Benghazi, Boston, and now this.

Oh right, because the government is too busy persecuting TEA Party members and Obama's political enemies to focus on actual threats to our country.

[Lord Humungus]

they obviously need more powers to poke into our personal lives. Isn't that obvious?

[CE]

This is what happens when you try to take the 4th Amendment and the 2nd Amendment literally.

[jesse.in.mb]

No, Mike, they kept us safe from all the OTHER attacks that would have happened were they not hoovering up all of our data. You know, the OTHER ones that didn't happen. They can't catch them all.

[Hillary's Clitdong]

Oh right, because the government is too busy persecuting TEA Party members and Obama's political enemies to focus on actual threats to our country.

Even if they were focused on "actual" terrorists, they're not going to find them. Stuff like the Boston bombing was such a small operation that the chance of the NSA finding out about it through intercepted communications is virtually zero. Just because they have almost every communication does not mean they have anywhere near the amount of brains and computer power that would be necessary to effectively searcg all that information to find the terrorist in the haystack.

[Enough About Palin]

"Even if they were focused on "actual" terrorists, they're not going to find them."

Even when the Russians point them out in advance.

[Zeb]

Well, all you really need to do is talk to your con conspirators face to face and otherwise keep your damn mouth shut. NSA can't hoover up data that isn't there.
Not that I think that their data hoovering is perticularly effective at stopping terrorist attacks.

[Paul.]

You can be first, but you have to be right.

No, no you don't.

[kinnath]

Just another case of work-place violence.

[Tim]

It's why pencils have erasers.

[Tim]

BREAKING: George Zimmerman is the shooter!

[General Butt Naked]

The navy was minding its own business, coming back from the Persian Gulf with hummus and skittles when it was brutally attacked.

[CE]

He's a Navy Yard waiting to happen.

[db]

DHS says there is "no known connection to terrorism." Uh, what? Would it be better if they had had that info all along? Why bother saying this at all? It's quite likely to be "related" to terrorism. Just because al Qaeda doesn't immediately issue a press release claiming responsibility doesn't mean it wasn't informed by terrorist tendencies. Nidal Hassan went out of his way to claim he was a terrorist acting in sympathy with Islamic terrorists and they tried to make him shut up about it.

[William of Purple]

BUT THE NRA HAS GONE SILENT

/DERP

[Warty]

I'm hearing three shooters, one dead, two at large. Wouldn't that indicate possible terrorism? Or maybe that's not as convenient a thing to blame if you want to ban guns.

[Tim]

Things media wants to blame:

White men
men
whites
White tea party men
The Klan
Libertarians who are also white and male

[Rasilio]

You didn't need to specify male when you listed Libertarians since everyone knows there are no libertarian women

[hotsy totsy]

Also:

Fox News
Gun shows
Rush Limbaugh
The Koch Brothers
Walmart
No funding for abortions
No access to abortions
GMOs

[thom]

Shooter was a black male. How are they going to spin this?

[Somalian Road Corporation]

The same way the one drop rule applied to "white hispanic" quarter-black Zimmerman?

[CE]

Except that I heard one shooter, dead. Then maybe a second shooter somewhere. Then not, and flights out of Reagan okay again. Then a second shooter still at large. Then maybe a third shooter.

Sounds like the additional shooter(s) were added after interviewing witnesses, when the descriptions of the shooter varied widely. Maybe they saw policemen and mistook them for more shooters. I saw video with at least one sniper in a helicopter.

[Warty]

Yeah. Nobody fucking knows, which is why it's especially galling when the media and political scum make up bullshit explanations.

[Tim]

Nobody knows, except they know it's not terrorism. That they know.
It's page one in the Guide to Emergency Clusterfucks : " There is no evidence of terrorism".

[Enough About Palin]

"I know it wasn't terrorism-terrorism. It was something else but I don't believe it was terrorism-terrorism.

[Zeb]

Well, whatever the reason behind it, it is pretty clearly terrorism, no? Unless they stole something or were targeting particular people, which I haven't heard anything about.

[Rasilio]

No, terrorism requires a greater goal than just the violence perpetrated.

So if it was just a disgruntled employee out for some payback it would not be terrorism

[Tim]

OT:
"MEDFORD ? With a broad smile, Attorney General Martha Coakley walked into Dempsey's Breakfast & Lunch this morning to greet diners and launch her campaign for the Democratic nomination for governor."

You gotta be kidding me.

[Andrew S.]

I really don't care about her politics. She's one of the most vile human beings (maybe the most vile) in politics today. If this was a just world, she'd have been disbarred and humiliated long ago.

[Hillary's Clitdong]

What a sack of shit.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Oh she is indeed vile and a piece of shit cunt. Isn't she the one who knew about that family ( a mother, son and daughter) who owned a daycare and were wrongfully convicted of molestation? Either she prosecuted or refused to do the right thing when the evidence showed their innocence?

Instead, the languished in prison where the mother eventually died.

Yeah, I hope karma comes back and performs real justice.

[Killazontherun]

What is wrong with our species that she would be a member?

[Tim]

What's wrong with Massachusetts that she shit on the Red Sox and Red Sox fans and they suffer her yet to live?

[Jordan]

You never see anyone named Rollie anymore. I think we've found the name for sloopy's next kid.

[General Butt Naked]

He was before my time, but I always like Rollie Fingers when I was a kid.

[Mike M.]

Shooter identified as Aaron Alexis, a 34 year old from Fort Worth, Texas.

[General Butt Naked]

Oh thank gawd. I thought I heard it was Alexis Texas

nsfw

[BuSab Agent]

Now there's a white girl properly built for twerking.

[General Butt Naked]

Yup.

[Tonio]

And right on cue, here's WaPo columnist Petula Dvorak:

After Newtown, it took a little longer for our collective numbness to return. But not even the pleas of grief-stricken parents who'd lost their children could make a dent in the opposition to any restrictions on the sales of semiautomatic weapons.

[Tonio]

Moar (and have your barf-bag handy):

Our middle class is disappearing, our income gap is back to robber-baron days and none of the people responsible for the global economic crisis went to prison or jail.

[Michael S. Langston]

and none of the people responsible for the global economic crisis went to prison or jail

Nope - most of them got re-elected.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Damn, one of the shooters is black.

There goes the narrative.