Fox car chase ends in suicide on live television
The vehicle that the suspect allegedly stole.
A Fox newscaster has apologized for a suicide that was broadcast on live television. Fox had been airing live footage of a car chase in an Arizona desert. According to a local Fox station, the police had pursued a car-jacking suspect down the I-10 for over an hour before he pulled off the freeway.
At one point, Fox anchor Shepard Smith expressed annoyance that the director cut away from the highway mid-chase. “If it were up to me, we’d stay with this,” he told viewers, according to the Washington Post. But the broadcast soon returned to the car chase. The suspect had pulled the car off the freeway and onto a dirt road. He then abandoned the car and ran across a field before he pulled a gun to his head and shot himself on live television. Smith yelled "Get off it, get off it," several times to his studio crew, according to NPR, and the broadcast quickly cut to a commercial.
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When the program returned, Smith apologized to viewers. "We really messed up," he said. Watch his apology below:
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