Pickup Crashes Into Dallas Television Station Building
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DALLAS (CBS) – A pickup truck smashed into a television station in Dallas early Wednesday morning.
It was just after 6 a.m. when the driver crash into the Fox 4 News building.
According to CBS Dallas, Michael Fry Chadwick, repeatedly smashed the vehicle into the Fox 4 News building in downtown Dallas, at the corner of Griffin Street and San Jacinto.
"Shortly after it [call] came out as a crash it got upgraded to a major disturbance when it was determined that the vehicle involved with the crash was actually intentionally ramming the building," Senior Corporal Debra Webb, with Dallas Police Department media relations, said.
Huge windows were shattered and broken as the truck sat against the glass, with the front end crumpled.
After the crash, the driver jumped out of the truck and began yelling and throwing papers that he removed from a bag and several boxes. Boxes and papers from the bed of the truck were scattered along the front of the building.
The man, who never entered the building, was quickly handcuffed and taken into custody.
"When the officers arrived out here on the scene, they came in contact with the suspect. He immediately laid down on the ground and surrendered to the officers. They got him into custody without any incident," Webb said.
Police say the man was rambling and appeared to be in some sort of agitated mental state.
After a number of officers arrived at the scene, the Dallas Police Bomb Squad was called.
"When [the suspect] did come out of his vehicle, after ramming the building, he pulled a bag out of his vehicle so we had our EOD, our bomb unit, come out here just as a precaution to check that and make sure that it wasn't anything dangerous," Webb said. "The bag was cleared."
Police sent a bomb robot over to the truck to examine it before bomb squad members went to the vehicle and began searching it. K-9 officers were later brought to the scene to search vehicles parked nearby.
The suspect was taken to Parkland Hospital for medical evaluation. Police say once he is released, he will be taken to the Lew Sterrett Justice Center, where he is expected to booked on a number of charges.
Most of the journalists and workers in the newsroom were evacuated from the building. News anchors, in the middle of a newscast, were in a studio on the opposite side of the building and said they heard nothing.
No injuries have been reported.