Michael Chadwick Fry, the man arrested for allegedly ramming his pickup truck into a Texas news station, said he just wanted to stay alive, and push “the media to do their job.”
“Please don’t let them punish me for trying to stay alive,” he told WFAA as police escorted him in handcuffs.
A reporter asked about his “message,” and he said, “They’ve committed a high treason against me. They were trying to kill me, and they missed, and they killed Roberto Carlos Hernandez, and ever since I’ve been running for my life, and I don’t know what to do. I’m not smart enough. I’m not powerful enough. I don’t have enough money. I’m mentally challenged. I tried to do what I could to demand questions to be heard. I just wanted to summon the cavalry, and get the power of the people in the media to do their job.”
Police said that a pickup truck rammed into the FOX 4 building in Dallas.
#Dallas police say Michael Chadwick Fry who rammed a rental truck into FOX 4 in downtown Dallas “had mental issues and indicated people were trying to kill him.” He wanted #media attention to 2012 officer-involved shooting in neighboring Denton County. @CBSDFW (photo from 2016) pic.twitter.com/lrnGOCx4dT
— MaryAnn Martinez (@maryanncbs11) September 5, 2018
In a statement, Dallas cops told Law&Crime that they responded to a call Thursday morning about a vehicle crash. They determined the driver repeatedly and intentionally drove into the FOX 4 building. No one was injured, and officers took the driver into custody without incident, police said. Responding officers described the driver as talking but not making any sense.
Papers strewn around the outside of the FOX 4 building featured information about an officer-involved shooting in another city, police said.
It was, according to WFAA, a printout of their story about the 2012 death of Roberto Carlos Hernandez. He was shot and killed in Denton County after allegedly ramming a deputy’s cruiser with his own vehicle. Fry was his passenger.
“WFAA covered the shooting in October 2012 as depicted in the printout left at the scene, and we stand by the facts in the original article,” WFAA President & General Manager Brad Ramsey said in a statement published by the outlet. “Our thoughts are with our colleagues at FOX 4 today.”
Cops said it doesn’t seem that the suspect directly targeted the media.
He had removed a bag from his truck after the crash, and put it near the building, police said. A bomb squad found no suspicious devices in it, the FOX 4 building, or on the suspect, according to the statement.
Fry is being charged with criminal mischief, a second-degree felony.
[Screengrab via WFAA]
