BALTIMORE (AP) — Criminal charges have been filed against a man shot and wounded by police after walking into a Baltimore TV station wearing an animal costume and a fake bomb, authorities said Friday.
Alex Michael Brizzi, 25, of Elkridge, has been charged with arson, malicious burning, threat of arson, reckless endangerment and possessing a phony destructive device, said Baltimore Police Commissioner Kevin Davis.
Davis said Brizzi walked into the vestibule of Baltimore’s Fox 45 TV station just before 1:30 p.m. Thursday wearing a hedgehog costume and a surgical mask “associated with Japanese anime culture,†with a red vest strapped to his torso. Brizzi left the vestibule at about 3 p.m., and refused to comply with officers’ commands to put his hands up in the air. Brizzi was shot at least three times by police. He was taken to University of Maryland Shock Trauma and is expected to survive his wounds.
Before entering the station, Brizzi set his own car on fire.
Davis said a search warrant was executed on both Brizzi’s home and his car, and that no explosives or replica explosives were found. He said the event is in no way connected to any type of organized terrorism.
Edward Brizzi, of Elkridge, Maryland, told news outlets after the shooting Thursday his son had a breakdown two weeks ago and said he had a vision from God that the world would end next month.
Edward Brizzi didn’t know why he chose Fox affiliate WBFF-TV on Baltimore’s TV hill.
“I think what it is, he wanted to go to a media outlet so he pass his message on that the world’s going to end on June the third,†Edward Brizzi said in an interview with the TV station.
Alex Brizzi gave a flash drive to a security guard and told him he wanted the station to broadcast its contents. Police later determined what Brizzi claimed to be a bomb consisted of aluminum-wrapped chocolate bars duct-taped to a flotation device. Smith said police don’t know what was on the drive.
Police said Alex Brizzi barricaded himself inside the station after it was evacuated and his car became engulfed in flames outside as police, fire, arson, bomb squad and SWAT teams arrived. Police don’t know what caused the fire.
Brizzi then walked out of the building and into the street, where he ignored heavily armed officers’ orders to show his hands. Police shot him and then communicated with him via a bomb-detecting robot.
When the Brizzi removed the fake bomb, paramedics rushed to him and put him in an ambulance, Smith said.