SEATTLE: The news director at KCPQ-TV has resigned following a controversy about video footage of an alleged police beating, according to press reports. Steve Kraycik, news director at the Tribune-owned Fox affiliate, was said to have resigned Friday. The Seattle Times said a senior assignment editor, Cheri Mossberg, was fired following the incident.
The station came under fire last week after it delayed airing video that is reported to show a white police officer using racial slurs while beating a Latino man. The National Association of Hispanic Journalists condemned the station’s decision to hold the video for nearly a month.
KCPQ “has done a disservice to Latinos, to journalism and to its audience, which is now global considering the worldwide attention to this story, particularly via the Internet,” the group said.
Freelance videographer Jud Morris captured the scene April 17 while on the job for KCPQ. When he turned it in, he said the station team found the officer’s behavior “didn’t look that egregious.” Morris was fired by the station after posting the video on YouTube. He then sold it Cox-owned CBS affiliate KIRO-TV, which ran it as a main story earlier this month. KCPQ then aired the video showing an officer kicking a man lying on the sidewalk, yelling “I’m going to beat the [expletive] Mexican piss out of you, homey. You feel me?”
The man on the sidewalk was later identified as Martin Monetti, who had done nothing and has now hired a law firm.
