By now you have likely heard about the story in which a San Antonio police officer shot a teenager that was eating a hamburger.

The cop has been fired and also charged in the case.

The teenager, Erik Cantu is still in grave condition as of the writing of this story.

A man contacted Tegna’s KENS (San Antonio) and claimed to be the cousin of Erik Cantu. Without checking his story, KENS interviewed the man who made some apparently outlandish statements.

Again, without confirming the man’s identity and relationship to Erik Cantu, the Tegna station ran the story on a number of their newscasts.

A lawyer representing Cantu’s family contacted KENS 5 and told them that this man is not a relative of Cantu and Erik’s family has no clue who the guy is.

Well, it then became time for KENS to try and put the toothpaste back in the tube.

The station issued a retraction and said in part:

“In the story that aired Wednesday night, the man made several claims about the case and Cantu’s condition.

Based on information from the Cantu family lawyer and other information we’ve been able to uncover over the last several hours, we are retracting the report. 

The story did not meet our editorial standards, and we apologize to the Cantu family and our viewers.”

“…and other information we’ve been able to uncover over the last several hours”? Don’t you think you should have uncovered that information before you aired the story?

Here is a link to the KENS retraction.