PITTSBURGH: A dump truck driver who said he had a bomb deliberately smashed his truck through a security gate of the FBI’s offices on Tuesday, but no bomb was found and there appeared to be no connection to terrorism, authorities said.
The driver, Thomas Richard Ross, of New Waterford, Ohio, was injured in the crash, but nobody else was hurt, they said.
The truck was moving erratically and ran eight or nine red lights before a Pittsburgh police officer pulled it over late Tuesday morning near the FBI building on the city’s South Side, authorities said. The driver initially refused to surrender and was “acting erratically, claiming to have a bomb,” and although he later acted as though he was going to surrender, he instead accelerated and rammed the gate, the Pittsburgh public safety department said.
The truck was disabled by security barriers. The barriers include a large steel panel that rises out of the ground at the gate, which caused the truck to go slightly airborne before slamming into a light pole in a parking lot, FBI special agent Gregory Heeb said.
The driver, who appeared to have hit his head on the windshield, was tackled moments later, Heeb said.
Ross was hospitalized briefly for treatment of minor injuries, but afterward, while being escorted to a police cruiser, he tried to escape, authorities said. He was taken to Allegheny County jail, where he couldn’t be reached for comment. Ross faces numerous charges including aggravated assault, the Pittsburgh public safety department said.
