USAToday: All the Fiction That's Fit...

Clayton Cramer has a nice catch:

[I blogged] about how encouraging it was that national news media covered the story of how a witness retrieved a 9mm pistol from his vehicle in the parking lot, and used it to force a guy on a knifing rampage to stop.

USA Today has gone one better. They didn't just "leave out" the use of the gun--they appear to have invented new details to explain what happened:

[USAToday version:] The suspect was tackled by a witness as he tried to run from the building and was held until officers arrived, Higgins said.

[Original AP version:] Ingram, chasing one victim into the store's parking lot, was subdued by Chris Cope, manager of a financial services office in the same small shopping center, Memphis Police Sgt. Vince Higgins said.

Cope said he grabbed a 9mm semiautomatic pistol from his pickup truck when he saw the attacker chasing the victim "like something in a serial killer movie.""When he turned around and saw my pistol, he threw the knife away, put his hands up and got on the ground," Cope told The Associated Press. "He saw my gun and that was pretty much it."

Tackle? Block? Punt? Lie? Fabricate?