The driver rammed the car into the gate of the compound, accelerating right before impact.
Credit: X/@FBIPittsburgh
A driver crashed a car into the entrance gate of an FBI field office in Pittsburgh early Wednesday and fled on foot in what officials said they believed was a targeted act.
The FBI was looking for a suspect, who was named as Donald Henson of Penn Hills, a suburb of Pittsburgh, said Bradford Arick, the spokesperson for the field office. The driver was the sole occupant of the vehicle, a white sedan, and there were no injuries, Arick said.
The driver rammed the car into the gate of the compound at 2:45 a.m., accelerating right before impact, Arick said. The driver got out of the vehicle, draped an American flag on the gate and then fled on foot.
The crash damaged the vehicle and the gate, Arick said. A bomb squad was deployed to the site after the crash and was processing the scene early Wednesday, but no device had been found, he added.
The authorities did not know whether the driver was armed, but they believed he did not pose an immediate threat to the public, Arick said.
“This was certainly targeted against the FBI,” Arick said in a phone interview. He added later that “we’re urging the public to avoid him but call if they believe they’ve seen him.”
Christopher Giordano, the assistant special agent in charge at the office, told reporters Wednesday morning that Henson had previously visited the FBI office a few weeks ago to make a complaint “that didn’t make a whole lot of sense.”
“We do believe that there is a mental health problem and a history of mental health issues with the subject,” he said.
The Pittsburgh Police assisted in responding to the crash, and the FBI was leading the investigation into the incident, said Eliza Durham, a spokesperson for the city of Pittsburgh’s Public Safety Department.
FBI field offices have been targeted a few times in recent years. In April 2024, a man rammed his SUV into the security gate at the field office in Atlanta, and was fined around $25,000 for destruction of property. In 2022, officers shot and killed a man after he tried to break into the FBI’s Cincinnati office.