Georgia School Shooting: News Outlets Initially Misidentified Black Victim As Murder Suspect

Colt Gray, Apalachee High School shooting suspect. | Source: Barrow County Sheriff’s Office

In what is likely the latest evidence of a glaring lack of diversity in the media industry, at least two news outlets misidentified the suspect in Wednesday’s deadly mass shooting in Georgia as a Black student who was shot dead instead of the white teen who faces murder charges after being officially accused of carrying out the carnage.

At least one of the news outlets is located in Atlanta, which is about 50 miles northeast of where Colt Gray, 14, allegedly killed four people and injured nine others in a shooting at Apalachee High School in the city of Winder.

MORE: Georgia School Shooting: Cops Showed The Kind Of Restraint Unarmed Black People Rarely Receive

After Gray’s name was confirmed as the shooting suspect, WSB-TV inexplicably posted on social media the photo of Mason Schermerhorn underneath the caption: “A 14-year-old suspect, Colt Gray, was arrested.

I can't believe that WSB-TV identified a victim as the shooter. #ApalacheeHighScool pic.twitter.com/zLbMnmAmXB

— Nurses Against Dick Pics. (@ClaudetteGGibs1) September 5, 2024

Not to be outdone, right-wing tabloid the Daily Mail also posted Schermerhorn’s photo next to a white female classmate’s photo beneath the following caption: “Student who sat next to mass shooter Colt Gray reveals ‘odd’ behavior.”

OMFG, I just tried to Google it and it appears they’re not the only ones. The Daily Mail also tried to quietly delete, but there’s always receipts pic.twitter.com/ono7ym7kbR

— Jolyn (@HanakoVibe) September 5, 2024

Both social media posts have since been deleted, but not before they parked outrage. The posts were preserved via damning viral screenshots that suggest both outlets were more concerned with clicks than they were with the truth. The fact that it was all done at the expense of a young, innocent Black teen whose life was abruptly ripped away allegedly by a homicidal white classmate suggests a level of implicit bias, at best, by decision-makers at WSB-TV and the Daily Mail.

#BREAKING: We've just received this photo of Colt Gray, the 14-year-old suspect in the deadly shooting at Apalachee High School that claimed four lives: https://t.co/tkVAxWh5h5 pic.twitter.com/J1Xx63RK37

— WSB-TV (@wsbtv) September 5, 2024

It also appears that neither WSB-TV nor the Daily Mail were transparent when retracting the respective social media posts, including a conspicuous lack of formal corrections for the obvious errors.

One account on X, formerly Twitter, wondered in response to WSB-TV’s updated social post: “Where’s the apology?”

Another commented: “This still isn’t enough” and called on WSB-TV to “terminate some employees!”

Yet another post got to the heart of the matter by asking the quiet part out loud: “Did you assume the victim was the culprit based on his skin tone? Sure seems that way.”

Requests for comment sent to WSB-TV and the Daily Mail were not immediately returned.

Schermerhorn was one of two students – the other was Christian Angulo, also 14 – killed in the shooting Wednesday morning. Two teachers, Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Christina Irimie, 53, were also shot to death before Gray surrendered to the police.

Research conducted by the Pew Research Center and published in 2022 found that “experts say diversity can have a significant impact on the quality of journalism because a more diverse staff is likely to produce a wider range of stories and perspectives.”

That is especially true when factoring in the obligatory implicit bias, which is defined by ther American Psychological Association as “a negative attitude, of which one is not consciously aware, against a specific social group.”

Such implicit bias has revealed itself in other media reports involving Black people, including last year when a news station questioned the legitimacy of the Black National Anthem, “Lift Every Voice And Sing.”

Media outlets have often confused one Black person for another, as we saw two years ago when U.S. Open announcers said Dionne Warwick was Gladys Knight during a Serena Williams tennis match.

One year earlier, the New York Times admitted that its news coverage was rooted in white perspectives.

This is America.

SEE ALSO:

Rep. Mike Collins ‘Praying’ For Georgia School Shooting Victims Spotlights His Gun Ads

Georgia, Kamala Harris And A Study On Guns Showing Why Black Children And Teens Are At Most Risk

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