Tegna’s KPNX (Phoenix) posted a tweet that quickly went viral and then got a lot of blame for bad reporting.

The station said in a now deleted tweet that the Tempe Police Department would pull people over for obeying the law and give them a free drink ticket to Circle K.

Before the Tegna station deleted the tweet, here are some stats on that tweet:

2 million + video views
8,000 comments
3,000 likes
700 retweets

Needless to say, a number of people took issue with cops pulling you over for NOT breaking the law.

The Tempe Police said that KPNX’s reporting was wrong. Several hours after KPNX posted the news, Tempe police spokesman Det. Greg Bacon clarified that officers won't actually be pulling anyone over.

"We're not violating anyone's rights," Bacon said. "The intent is not for officers to stop cars, pull over a bike or detain anyone under any circumstances. It's simply an educational campaign on scooter, bike and pedestrian safety."

They also took to social media to try and clean up the mess that KPNX started:

KPNX seemed to blame the cops:

But shouldn’t the station have “clarified” the story before they reported it? Shouldn’t they have asked the same questions that viewers were asking?

KPNX then tried to put the toothpaste back in the tube.

Viewers took issue with the station’s original reporting:

How bad was this screw up? The station sent a crew down to the Tempe Police Department to do a Facebook live and try and explain how they screwed it up.

Yep….this is Tegna.