Man arrested after crashing truck into Dallas TV station

Updated

Sept 5 (Reuters) - A man was arrested in Dallas, Texas, on Wednesday after repeatedly crashing his truck into a building that housed a television station, apparently to highlight a grievance, police said.

The station, KDFW Fox 4, aired video footage of the incident showing the man, who was not immediately identified, getting out of his pickup truck after the crash and beginning to rant and throw papers around the area. No one was hurt.

Police spokeswoman Corporal Debra Webb told the station the man's motive was still being investigated, but that it did not appear that he was targeting the media.

“He was upset about some kind of officer-involved shooting that happened somewhere and he was wanting to get the information out about that," Webb said.

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Police were still determining what charges to file against the man on Wednesday morning, she said, adding, “we do expect that he will be charged with the damage that he caused on the scene.”

The incident comes amid heightened concern among news organizations over anti-press sentiments, often expressed by U.S. President Donald Trump, and follows a recent high-profile attack and threats against other media groups.

As police arrived, video aired by the station showed the middle-aged white man dressed in shorts lying down near his damaged silver pickup truck and the wreckage of the building's large glass-paneled walls. He was holding his hands behind him, waiting to be arrested.

The building was evacuated while police investigated a suspicious bag, the station said. No explosives were found, police said.

Less than a week ago, federal authorities charged a California man with threatening to kill employees of the Boston Globe, which had led hundreds of U.S. news organizations to editorialize in favor of press freedom.

In June, a man with a long-running feud against an Annapolis newspaper killed five people in its newsroom with a shotgun. (Reporting by Scott Malone in Boston, Peter Szekely in New York and Susan Heavey in Washington; Editing by Bernadette Baum)

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