During an appearance with Sean Hannity on his Fox News show earlier this week, 77 WABC host Curtis Sliwa had members of his Guardian Angels group stop a man, whom he accused of being an immigrant and shoplifting. The clip subsequently went viral.
However, neither of those accusations turned out to be true, with Hannity admitting as much Thursday.
“I want to talk about Curtis Sliwa’s appearance on this show on Tuesday night, when members of the Guardian Angels stopped a man and the police were called. Now, Curtis said that the man was a migrant and that he was shoplifting. Fox News has since spoken to the NYPD and, apparently, the statements made by Curtis that the man is a migrant is not true and the man was given a summons for disorderly conduct,” Hannity admitted.
“Today, Curtis Sliwa acknowledged to the Washington Post that the man has not been charged with shoplifting and Curtis said in part, quote, “I shouldn’t have been listening to the crowd. That was my mistake. I should not have had that knee-jerk reaction.”
The clip garnered millions of views on social media. Sliwa told the Associated Press he believed the man was an illegal immigrant because he was speaking Spanish and other members of his Guardian Angels had heard him speaking Spanish previously.
Hannity concluded his admission by insisting “On this show, we always want to set the record straight.”
