The WalMart Shooting You Probably Didn't Hear About.
(Or heard something misleading about...)

You probably heard about the mentally disturbed individual who shot two WalMart employees to death in Glendale, AZ. I Googled "Walmart Shooting" and got a bunch of hits on this story, the most recent being a local "Arizona Central" follow-up on the shooter.

But did you hear about this incident? (Hat tip to Zendo Deb of TFS Magnum. I knew she'd have a link to it!) I heard about it on Fox News Radio on my way in to work Friday morning. Here's the pertinent part:

One man was killed and a woman was injured Thursday during an apparent domestic dispute inside a Wal-Mart on the city's southeast side, the second time in less than a week that one of the retail giant's Western stores has been the scene of deadly violence.

Police spokeswoman Trish Hoffman said a witness told authorities that a man had been stabbing the woman inside the store when another man intervened and shot her attacker.

Hoffman said the stabbing appeared to stem from a domestic dispute. She did not know the relationship between the woman and the dead man, but friends of the woman told Albuquerque television stations that she had recently obtained a restraining order against her ex-husband.

"It looks like it's a possibility that the guy who shot the other man will be justified," Hoffman said. "From what witnesses are telling us, it corroborates his story that the male was stabbing the female and he intervened."

The woman, whose name was not immediately known, was taken to University of New Mexico Hospital where she was being treated for multiple stab wounds.

The man who was shot was pronounced dead at the scene. His name was not immediately released, nor was the name of the man accused of shooting him.

Witnesses told Albuquerque television stations that the gunshots shortly after 5 p.m. sent some people running as others hit the floor and crawled to safety.

I asked my wife about it this afternoon. She said she'd heard about the Glendale shooting and the one in New Mexico on CNN. The CNN coverage, she said, left her with the impression that the New Mexico shooter was another criminal. I've been surfing CNN's web page and can't find any coverage of the New Mexico incident, though there are two stories on the Glendale incident. Hell, even the AP piece on the Tuscaloosa, NM story mentioned the Glendale incident, but there has been, as far as I can determine, almost ZERO national coverage of this righteous shoot. This follow-on story by local Albuquerque TV station KOAT indicates that the woman who was stabbed was a WalMart employee - which explains why her ex-husband knew how to find her.

This local KRQE-TV story has the kind of headline you'll pretty much never see in national coverage, WalMart Shooter Likely Saved Life. It also gives names to those involved. Decedent: Felix Vigil. Victim: Joyce Cordova (critical but stable). Hero: the poetically-named 72-year old Due Moore.

Searches on these three names brought up zero hits on CNN. A Google News search on the three names individually scored only one hit - the story I just linked to. A Google News search on Glendale shooter Ed Liu brings up FIVE PAGES of links to various stories on the incident. And the interesting thing? Many of them link to the AP release on the New Mexico incident, because the AP piece mentioned Liu by name.

Here's an example of the kind of reporting that my wife probably heard, from WHDH-TV in Boston:

Two shot at New Mexico Wal-Mart

Err, no. ONE shot, one stabbed. The story is just the AP release, but isn't that headline juicy? "Two shot!!"

Media bias? What media bias?