CBS-affiliate WBBM has apologized for airing this boy's comments out of context. (Credit: Maynard Institute via Mediaite, screenshot)

Chicago CBS-affiliate WBBM apologized for misrepresenting a four-year-old’s comments in a June 30 segment, Mediaite reported.

WBBM reported the child saying that a local shooting “didn’t scare him and that, when he grows up, ‘I’m going to have me a gun.'”

However, as Mediaite noted, the child’s full comments explained that he wants to be a police officer when he grows up.  His full comments were “I’m not scared of nothing…I’m going to have me a gun…I’m going to be police!”

The NAACP’s president, Ben Jealous, criticized the station for using the child’s comments out of context, according to Mediaite.

Gawker reported that the station apologized for “the mistakes that were made, both in the reporting and editing of the story… The video of the child should not have aired.”

The Maynard Institute for Journalism Education’s president, Dori J. Maynard, criticized the segment.

“We have long been worried about the ways in which the media helps perpetuate negative stereotypes of boys and men of color, but this appears to be overtly criminalizing a preschooler.”