TV Station Edits Clip to Make 4-Year-Old Sound Thuggish

A Chicago TV station has apologized for quoting a 4-year-old boy out of context—in a way that just happened to make him sound like a wannabe gangster. A journalist reporting on a drive-by shooting that killed two teens in the boy's neighborhood asked him: "When you get older are you going to stay away from all these guns?" The boy responded "No," and said when he gets older, "I'm going to have me a gun!" The station ended the clip there, making no mention of the fact that the boy added, "I'm going to be the police!"

The CBS affiliate issued an apology after journalists and civil rights groups discovered the discrepancy, reports the New York Daily News. "Airing a video of the boy saying he wanted a gun that edits out the context simply reinforces stereotypes that African-American males are violent, even preschoolers," said the president of the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education, which first picked up on the out-of-context quote. (More Chicago stories.)