**UPDATE: Suspect, 25, was not wearing actual bomb; Had a surgical mask, a jacket, and a red flotation device with chocolate candy bars wrapped in aluminum foil and wires. He is in serious condition after being shot.**
A man possibly wearing a panda suit was shot after he stormed a Fox station in Baltimore and threatened to blow it up, police say.
As police gave a news conference outside Fox 45 following the shooting, a robot was approaching the suspect, who appeared to be alive with a hand in his pocket, to assess further risks.
The incident began around 1 p.m., when Fox employees in the station’s newsroom were alerted that they had to evacuate. Police responded to the station at around 1:20 p.m.
“This person had on some sort of outfit,” T.J. Smith, communications director for Baltimore police, said. “He had a surgical style mask or something over his face.” The man displayed “what appeared to be wires” that “appeared to be some type of explosive device.”
“Someone came into the front of the building and they apparently said that they had some information they wanted to get on the air,” news director Mike Tomko told the station’s reporters. “I came down at one point not knowing the person was in the lobby, near the vestibule area. He talked to me and was wearing what appears to be a full body white panda suit, surgical mask and sunglasses. He had a flash drive, said he had information he wanted to get on the air. He compared it to the information found in the Panama Papers. I told him, ‘I can’t let you in, you’re going to have to leave the flash drive here and slide it through the opening.’ He wouldn’t do that. Apparently he had made some threats before.”
“I saw him from across the street,” Fox reporter Paul Gessler told The Washington Post in a phone interview. “It was like an all-white painter suit, almost — like a onesie-type suit.”
Meanwhile, a vehicle was set on fire in the station’s parking lot, police said.
“It appeared to be arson-related,” Smith said. “. . . There was a rag inside of the gas tank area of the vehicle. [There] was no type of explosion, no type of bomb detonated at any time.”
At around 3 p.m., the suspect was shot by police, but not killed, when he emerged from the building and started advancing towards officers. He didn’t listen to officers when they told him to take his hands out of his pockets, Smith said.
“I wish we were in a position to render first aid to him immediately,” Baltimore Police Commissioner Kevin Davis told reporters as the robot approached the man. But Davis said the suspect could do additional harm, and might be attempting to trigger another explosive device.
BREAKING: Man With Bomb Strapped To His Chest Walks Into Fox45 In Baltimore – https://t.co/TSMlNpHKyx pic.twitter.com/gSjac6s1pI
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) April 28, 2016
Police said the suspect appeared to be in his 20s, and that they did not know what provoked the attack. Reporters asked whether the incident might be related to an attack on ABC2 in Baltimore in 2014 in which a man crashed a truck into the station.
“Public spaces, places where people get their news from . . . are occasionally vulnerable,” Commissioner Davis said.
“Why did he do this?” Smith said. “We don’t know the answer to that.”
(c) 2016, The Washington Post · Justin Wm. Moyer
