‘Today’ Show Suicide Knife Attacker Identified By NYC Media [Video]
A Today show suicide attempt by Queens resident Pak Chong Mar, who pulled out a box cutter during the filming outside the Rockfeller Center NBC studio, briefly frightened onlookers. Some people on the scene said frankly that they were reminded of the recent Woolwich terror attack in London, where two assailants armed with knives and machetes hacked a young soldier to death.
Varying reports said that the suicidal man wielded a knife or a box cutter as he stumbled behind the Today show security partition.
Witness Kellie Ostranksy told The New York Post that she immediately thought of the Woolwich attack in the confusion: “I saw him take slice after slice. I saw the blood gushing…The first thing I thought about was that soldier in London.”
Before he cut himself, Mar was reportedly screaming that the IRS was watching him and distributing flyers about the federal agency’s alleged treatment of him.
He is currently being treated at a nearby mental hospital and is presumably ill, not a terrorist, despite the political and IRS motives behind his actions.
A New York Daily News report said that he had two cutting implements, and that he pulled out a second knife after the first was taken away.
By their account, Pak Chong Mar may have slashed at both wrists with the instruments until NYPD and Rockefeller plaza security tackled him.
Matt Lauer was forced to cancel the filming of an outdoor segment as a result of the incident.
All secure on the plaza after a scary incident. Thanks to our security team and the NYPD.
— Matt Lauer (@MLauer) June 6, 2013
Sorry, a man attempted to harm himself with a knife. He is under police control.In custody.
— Matt Lauer (@MLauer) June 6, 2013
The Post said that a man of the same name cut off three fingers and flung them into the crowd during a 1995 festival in Flushing, but they didn’t know yet if it was the same man.
A short cell phone clip of the Today show suicide attempt being stopped by security is hosted on YouTube at the time of writing:
In any event, we can be grateful that no one else was hurt. Let’s hope the victim of self-harm recovers soon from the Today show suicide attempt.
[Today show attack image via SirAnduck via Twitter]
[box cutter photo by Evan Amos via Wikimedia Commons]
