Experts now believe that CNN's audio from the Ferguson shooting, which the network aired on Monday despite claiming to be unaware of the authenticity of the audio, might easily be a hoax.
Former Los Angeles Police Department officer David Klinger and CNN law enforcement analyst Tom Fuentes told CNN's "New Day" on Wednesday that the audio could easily be a prank pulled by someone.
"I have no idea [if it's authentic]," Klinger said, according to The Examiner. "I've told your producers that for all I know this is something one of Howard Stern's punk people had been doing. …I look at this and my first inclination is someone is trying to punk CNN."
"When I heard this yesterday, I thought the exact same thing," Fuentes added. "It's a hoax."
"The engineers in the laboratory at Quantico will be trying to determine if there was a dubbing," he continued. "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; was it the complete tape?"
Since the audio aired on Monday, a number of people have questioned its authenticity, as the man in the audio is clearly unfazed by the multiple shots fired in the background. In the audio, the unidentified man is heard praising a girl saying, "You are pretty. You're so fine, just going over some of your videos. How could I forget?"
The person behind the recording continues to remain unidentified, as he is said to be "embarrassed" about his involvement in the situation, but a lawyer who is associated with man is said to have given enough proof about the audio's authenticity.
"[W]e interviewed the caller's attorney off camera and she answered key questions that gave us confidence to put her on the air live with Don [Lemon]. And we did confirm the caller lived close enough to the shooting to have heard the shots," CNN told The Washington Post.
The lawyer in question appears to be Lopa Blumenthal, an attorney in the St. Louis area.
Blumenthal got involved in the situation when a prior client of hers stopped by for a visit and showed her a footage believed to be taken by the man's roommate, who was in Ferguson at the time of Michael Brown's killing.
Reportedly, Blumenthal requested CNN to avoid running the video footage to protect the man's privacy, and she told the Post that the man in question even wanted his voice removed from it.
"He was very embarrassed by it," said Blumenthal.
