CNN Guest on Ferguson Audio: 'Someone's Trying to Punk CNN'

CNN Guest on Ferguson Audio: 'Someone's Trying to Punk CNN'

On CNN’s Wednesday broadcast of “New Day,” host Michaela Pereira interview two so-called experts, former Los Angeles Police Officer David Klinger and former FBI assistant director Tom Fuentes, on the potential authenticity audio the cable news outlet had been airing over the past 24 hours, which allegedly is of this month’s shooting of Michael Brown by Ferguson, MO police.

Klinger questioned the timing of the audio and hinted that it was his inclination that it was a hoax.

“I have no idea,” Klinger said. “I mean, I’ve told your producers that for all I know this is something one of Howard Stern’s punk people had been doing. You know, it came out two weeks after the event and so I don’t have a high degree of confidence in it. It could be real … I mean, if you listen at what the gentleman is saying and the gunfire and so on and so forth, I look at this and my first inclination is someone is trying to punk CNN. Hopefully we’ll find out.”

Fuentes indicated he tended to agree, but said the audio would still have to be authenticated.

“The engineers in the laboratory at Quantico will be trying to determine if there was a dubbing — did we have an original recording of this guy having a conversation no one wants to talk about, and then the shots then dubbed over it,” Fuentes said. “Was it the complete tape? All accounts from Brown’s side and the officer’s side say there was a single shot fired initially at the door of the police car. So that shot, followed by Brown trying to flee and then the officer exiting the car and pursuing him and then firing the series of shots — so we’re missing that first shot. Now, I don’t know. CNN got this tape first. Did they censor it because the guy said something obscene over the first shot and they didn’t want to air that? I mean, we just don’t know all that … When I heard this yesterday, I thought the exact same thing — It’s a hoax. But maybe not. Maybe we’ll be able to authenticate it.”

Fuentes went on to say that should it be authenticated, the audio would support both the police and Brown’s side of the story.

Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor

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