The news of a doctor forcibly removed from a United flight on Sunday evening for refusing to give up the seat he paid for was gruesome.

Videos taken and posted by other passengers show that he was injured and bleeding as the Chicago Department of Aviation Security officers dragged him across the aisle. United wanted to get four crewmembers to the Lousiville destination for Monday, and asked for passengers to voluntarily give up their seats. No one volunteered. One passenger, chosen at random to give up his seat, refused to do so and was hauled off the plane.

Since then, United’s stock has plummeted amid continuing media coverage and serious public relations missteps.

Now, though, the news cycle takes a turn towards looking into the past of the passenger in question. Our colleagues at Chicagoist have a run-down on some of the media victim-blaming that has emerged since David Dao, 69, was identified as the passenger. His past wrongs have begun to garner nearly as much attention as the clear wrong committed against him on Sunday.

It looks like one of those reports will air on D.C. local station WJLA at 4 p.m. today, per a tweet from investigative reporter Lisa Fletcher.

The response to Fletcher’s story has been swift, with people asking how his “troubled past” is at all relevant to the event in question. Look no further than the ratio of retweets to responses to the tweet for a sign that the wind is not blowing in WJLA’s favor.

The condemnation has come from audiences and journalists alike.

We’ve reached out to WJLA news director Mitch Jacob for comment, and will update when we hear back.

In the meantime, let’s hear more about United’s troubled past.

Update 1: Fletcher has since tweeted about the reaction her since-deleted tweet got:

Update 2: WJLA decided not to air the story after all.

Updated to reflect that while United initially said the flight was overbooked, it has since clarified that it was not overbooked Additionally, the involved officers were with the Chicago Department of Aviation Security, not the Chicago Police Department.

Filed Under: news, united, victim-blaming, wjla,