Emphasizing the illegal immigration status of the alleged killer of slain college student Mollie Tibbetts, Fox News provoked backlash from one of its own commentators, who called out the network for its “spin.”

During a Thursday night interview, Geraldo Rivera told Martha MacCallum that contrary to her take on the story, it was about the crime of murder rather than border-crossing.

“I know that most of the Fox audience disagrees with me, but I’m begging you to have compassion and not brand of this entire population by the deeds of this one person,” he said.

MacCallum pushed back and said the immigration issue is a serious one, echoing President Donald Trump‘s efforts to link illegal immigration with crime. That, Rivera said, was misleading.

“We at this network are putting that spin on the story,” he remarked. “This is a murder story, not an immigration story.”

Earlier, Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick railed against the media and Rivera himself, blaming them as accomplices to Tibbets’ murder, an accusation by which the commentator was clearly offended, taking a moment to respond to that as well.

“To be called by that bottom feeding politician an accomplice to this young lady’s murder, that something I cannot abide,” Rivera said. “He is stereotyping 11 million people in our country here without documentation. They care for our babies, they mow our lawns, they wash our dishes, they pick our fruit, they pack our meat, they process our poultry.”

While MacCallum held onto her argument that immigration had an important role to play in Tibbetts’ death, Rivera said murder isn’t a crime perpetrated exclusively by certain groups of people.

“White people, black people, red people, yellow people–they do these crimes,” he said. “This is feeding the false impression that this population increases violent crime. It is a falsehood and to use this case to make that point is wrong.”

Watch the clip above via Fox News.

[Image via screengrab]

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