On Saturday, both ABC and CNN devoted time to sympathetically hyping the case of an illegal immigrant in Los Angeles who was arrested by ICE agents at a gas station while driving his pregnant wife to the hospital to give birth, and highlighted her claims that her husband had no criminal record.
But it turns out that the suspect, Joel Arrona-Lara, is wanted because he is suspected of committing a homicide in Mexico.
CNN has so far not gotten around to updating viewers of the homicide accusation, while ABC reporters still seemed upset over the arrest even after they gave viewers an update on his possible criminal history on Sunday morning. Additionally, on Sunday evening, the CBS Weekend News started giving attention to the story, and ABC's World News Tonight made an update noting the possible criminal record.
On Saturday morning, CNN ran three reports of nearly two minutes each which related that it was unknown at the time the details of why ICE targeted him beyond his being "undocumented." In all three of her introductions, co-host Christi Paul presented the newborn baby as the focus of the story as she introduced the report.
At 9:30 a.m. Eastern, Paul lamented: "I want to let you know about this story regarding a new baby boy. He is not with his dad today because ICE agents hauled his father away as the family was headed to the hospital where the mom was scheduled for a C-section."
The report showed a clip of Arrona-Lata's wife claiming that her husband had no criminal history. CNN dropped the story after Saturday morning, and, as of Sunday at 7:00 p.m. Eastern, has not updated viewers so far on revelations about his possible criminal history.
ABC's World News Tonight similarly ran a story on Saturday evening suggesting he had no criminal record. On Sunday morning, ABC's Good Morning America made an update which admitted that he was wanted for a homicide, but the report still presented the case sympathetically referring to the "outrage" -- presumably from liberals -- over the arrest.
When the CBS Weekend News arrived at the story on Sunday, correspondent Carter Evans waited until almost halfway through the report to bring up the possible homicide history as a justification for the arrest.
