At 3:00 a.m. CT on Tuesday, someone opened fire at a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in San Antonio Texas. Despite both FBI and ICE officials describing the attack as “targeted” and fueled by “political rhetoric,” on Wednesday, over 24 hours after the shooting, NBC and ABC have yet to report the story while CBS This Morning only provided seconds of air time.
“The FBI says a shooting at an ICE office in San Antonio was a targeted attack,” co-host Anthony Mason informed This Morning viewers during a 23-second news brief. He added: “The field office director believes political rhetoric and misinformation encouraged the incident.”
FBI Special Agent in Charge Chris Combs, leading the investigation, told the San Antonio Express-News: “...all of the shots that we have found were on the floors where ICE has offices, so there is no question it is a very targeted attack.”
Talking to local Fox News affiliate KABB-TV, ICE field office director Daniel Bible specifically blamed left-wing rhetoric against the agency and irresponsible media coverage for the shooting:
Political rhetoric and misinformation that various politicians, media outlets and activist groups recklessly disseminate to the American people regarding the ICE mission only serve to further encourage these violent acts. ICE officers put their lives on the line each and every day to keep our communities safe. This disturbing public discourse shrouds our critical law enforcement function and unnecessarily puts our officers’ safety at risk.
Combs offered a similar warning:
To fire indiscriminately into any building, let alone a federal facility, is not an act of protest. It’s an act of violence...against the federal government that could have resulted in the assassination of a federal employee....We are concerned that there could be additional attacks. We have to stop it. We cannot allow political discourse to lead us to the point of violence, where federal employees, innocent people doing their jobs, are put in harm’s way.
CBS managed to edit harsh media criticism out of its report, while NBC and ABC were silent on the attack. Meanwhile, on Spanish-language news, Telemundo didn't cover it, Univision evening news didn't cover it, and Univision late night covered it but did not mention that it was being investigated as a targeted attack.
Tuesday’s NBC Nightly News did devote a full report to correspondent Gabe Gutierrez trying to shame the acting director of ICE over the agency doing its job during recent raids in Mississippi of companies that employed hundreds of illegal immigrants. Earlier in the day, MSNBC anchor Andrea Mitchell wondered how Gutierrez “kept” his “cool” during the interview with the Trump administration official.
In July, when an Antifa extremist was shot and killed by authorities outside an ICE detention center in Tacoma, Washington after attempting to burn down the facility, ABC’s Good Morning America barely noticed the foiled act of terrorism while NBC and CBS skipped the story.
The media have largely excused far-left Democrats like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez labeling immigration detention centers “concentration camps” and over the course of just a few days in 2018, CNN and MSNBC actually made 22 comparisons of U.S. immigration policy to the Holocaust or slavery.
Apparently holding people responsible for overheated rhetoric after an act of violence only applies to Republicans and conservatives, not liberals in the Democratic Party or the press.
Here is a transcript of the August 14 news brief on CBS This Morning:
7:17 AM ET
ANTHONY MASON: The FBI says a shooting at an ICE office in San Antonio was a targeted attack.
[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: ICE Offices Targeted; Official Blames “Political Rhetoric” for San Antonio Shooting]
Investigators say shots were fired into a window of the field office around 3:00 a.m. yesterday. No one was hurt but people were inside. The field office director believes political rhetoric and misinformation encouraged the incident. No arrests have been made.
