ABC Smears Injured Rubio Canvasser As White Supremacist
Decent Americans on both sides of the aisle were outraged by reports this week that a canvasser working for the campaign of Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) was viciously beaten on Sunday night while working in Hialeah, Florida.
In a tweet the following day, Rubio condemned the behavior of a group of “animals” who allegedly targeted the victim for his political beliefs, sharing photos that showed the extent of his injuries.
Local ABC News affiliate WPLG, however, chose to focus on a portion of a police report in a story claiming that Hialeah authorities had not yet determined a “political motive” in the apparently unprovoked attack.
In reality, Police Sgt. Jose Torres did not rule out such a motive, but rather indicated that he would “allow the investigation to reveal that.”
Furthermore, the WPLG reporter went beyond the details provided by police and published the identity of the victim as well as his alleged ties to a “white supremacist” organization.
Aside from confirming that a suspect had been arrested in connection with the attack, the WPLG article focused primarily on casting doubt on Rubio’s claims that the victim was targeted because he was wearing a shirt and hat that revealed his GOP affiliation.
The reporter noted that an initial police report “makes no mention of any additional attackers or any stated political motivation.”
A subsequent editor’s note attached to the end of the story confirms that police indicated at least one other suspect participated in the attack.
As the victim recovered from the brutal beating, WPLG dragged his name through the mud by rehashing an event from five years ago that reportedly resulted in his arrest. The article described a protest against efforts to rename Confederate monuments in the Hollywood, Florida, area.
Asserting that the man “has spoken publicly” about previously supporting White nationalist causes, “but said he changed his ways,” the article went on to note that a shirt he was wearing during the 2017 protest had connections to an organization that the Southern Poverty Law Center identified as a hate group.
Even if the victim had expressed objectionable views earlier in his life, however, nothing in the police report suggested that he was acting on any such hate before an assailant — or assailants — began beating him in the street.
