Getty/U of U Kamala Harris and Melvin Rowland
Fox News mistakenly ran photos of U.S. Senator Kamala Harris in a segment discussing the suspect in the murder of University of Utah college student Lauren McCluskey.
The network later apologized for its error.
You can watch the segment here:
Fox News ran footage of @KamalaHarris during a segment about a murderer/sex offender thought to be on the loose.
The network ran two images of Harris along with the phrase “suspect dead after killing student on campus.” The images appeared in the midst of a story by Fox News on the murder of McCluskey, who was found shot to death in a car on campus on the evening of October 22, 2018.
Melvin Rowland, a 37-year-old registered sex offender who had briefly dated McCluskey, is the shooter in the McCluskey death, according to police. Rowland fled the scene and was later discovered deceased after killing himself, according to authorities.
Here’s what you need to know:
Fox News Apologized for the Mistake
About 45 minutes later they got the correct footage and “apologize[d] for that error.”
In a second video, Fox News corrected the earlier alert, removing the pictures of Kamala Harris from it. “Now in an earlier version of this story, we showed you the wrong video,” anchorwoman Jillian Mele said. “We showed you pictures of Senator Kamala Harris instead of Melvin Rowland’s mug shot. We apologize for that error.” You can watch the corrected video with the apology at the end above.
Some people on social media were, understandably, upset about the mistake.
Trump’s favorite channel @FoxNews uses photos of @KamalaHarris to depict a murder suspect in Utah. #WhenAnyBlackWillDo
Melvin Rowland is accused by police of shooting McCluskey, a track star at the University of Utah and excellent student, to death as she walked home from a night class. Her mother released a statement to the news media in which she indicated that her daughter had tried to break off a short relationship with Rowland when she learned that he had lied to her about both his name and criminal history. Here’s an actual photo of Melvin Rowland:
Sex offender registryMelvin Rowland
The death has shaken the campus community.
In the statement, Jill McCluskey, Lauren’s mother, wrote, “Lauren previously dated her killer for about one month. He lied to her about his name, his age, and his criminal history. Lauren was informed by a friend about his criminal history, and she ended the relationship with her killer on October 9, 2018.”
Facebook/U of ULauren McCluskey
The statement continues, “He had borrowed her car, and she requested for the University of Utah police (to) accompany her on October 10, 2018 to get the car back. She blocked his and his friends’ phone numbers and complained to University of Utah police that she was being harassed. Last night a little before 9 p.m., she was returning to her university apartment from her night class and talking to me on the phone. Suddenly, I heard her yell, ‘No, no, no!”
Lauren’s mother says, “I thought she might have been in a car accident. That was the last I heard from her. My husband called 911. I kept the line open and in a few minutes, a young woman picked up the phone and said all of Lauren’s things were on the ground.”
Her mother also wrote, “Lauren was a senior student athlete on the University of Utah track team. She was an outstanding student with a 3.75 GPA majoring in Communication and was excited to graduate in May 2019,” her mother wrote in the statement released to the media. “She was a 2015 honors graduate of Pullman High School where she was Washington state champion in the high jump and the school record holder in the 100 meter hurdles. She attended Capital Church in Salt Lake City. She loved to sing and had strength and determination. She was dearly loved and will be greatly missed.”