FBI officials in Pittsburgh are searching for the man they said crashed a white Sedan into the gate outside their field office in the city’s South Side Flats at around 2:40 a.m. Wednesday.
FBI officials identified the man as of Donald Henson of Penn Hills. They said Henson is known to the FBI and that the crash was targeted.
No injuries were reported.
Following the crash, the FBI said Henson exited the car, removed an American flag from the back seat and threw it onto the damaged gate. He then walked away from the scene.
“He got out and went around the passenger side and pulled something out of the passenger side,” Nakeisha Brown, who works nearby, told TribLive news partner WTAE. “I thought it was a gun, but it happened to be a flag and he just set it on that fence and started yelling out some words and just took off.”
Henson appeared to be incoherent when he left the scene, witnesses said.
Christopher Giordano, assistant special agent in charge at the FBI in Pittsburgh, told reporters that the car appeared to have some sort of message on one of the side windows.
Giordano said the FBI was familiar with the man.
“He did come here to the FBI field office a few weeks ago to make a complaint that didn’t make a whole lot of sense,” Giordano said.
FBI officials said Henson, who they believe is a former member of the military, may have been experiencing a mental health issue.
The FBI is investigating the incident.
FBI spokesman Bradford Arick asked the public to avoid Henson, although he is not believed to be armed. If seen, people should call 911 or 1-800-255-5324 or submit an online tip at tips.fbi.gov.
This is not the first time the FBI’s Pittsburgh gate has been struck.
In July 2016, Thomas Ross of New Waterford, Ohio, drove a dump truck through the FBI Pittsburgh gate, causing hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages. He was sentenced to time served, ordered to take a residential drug treatment program and pay $45,000 in restitution. He was convicted on federal charges of willfully injuring or committing depredation against U.S. government property.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.