Once again, media was off to the races with a false story.
Via Reason:
Empire star Jussie Smollett is in the hospital after two people allegedly assaulted him on the streets of Chicago around 2:00 a.m. last night.
The police are investigating the attack as a hate crime, since the perpetrators reportedly made racist and homophobic slurs. Smollett is a gay black man.
Several media outlets referenced claims that appeared in TMZ’s coverage of this matter, most notably that the perpetrators were white and yelled “this is MAGA country,” as they attacked Smollett. But a spokesperson for the Chicago police denied having any information about the race and political views of the attackers.
“According to the victim, the offenders’ faces were concealed,” a police spokesperson told Reason. “We have no record indicating that [they shouted ‘MAGA’], we only have record of them shouting racial and homophobic slurs at him.”