Around 12:30pm this afternoon, Fox News, in the process of covering an Arizona car chase live on its nationally broadcast 24-hour news network, inadvertently broadcast a suicide to the entire nation from somewhere near the La Paz County line.
The chase ended when the driver got out of the vehicle and erratically ran behind a bush before putting a gun to his head and apparently pulling the trigger as anchor Shepherd Smith told his producers, “Get off it. Get off it. Get off it.” The channel cut to commercial immediately, but not before the man slumped forward.
The exact location of the scene is unknown, but was described by Fox as “West of Tonapah” and by an observer familiar with the area as “near Salome”.
“We really messed up,” Smith told his viewers. He said the footage was on a 5-second time delay and shouldn’t have been aired.
Fox News immediately took the live stream off their website. Parker Live will not link to online video of the incident, but it can be found elsewhere.