A man with a history of mental illness allegedly fired a shot into a local Memphis TV station Tuesday before livestreaming his standoff with police.
Jarrad Nathan, 26, allegedly fired through the Fox 13 station’s security doors with a rifle around 11:30 a.m., sending two workers at the front desk scrambling for safety, according to footage of the harrowing incident.
The bullet struck the floor, deflected to the front desk and then hit the ceiling, the station said in its report of the shooting.
The suspect was unable to get inside and no one was injured.
The station said the protective glass worked as intended and didn’t shatter.
A Fox 13 employee later ran into the suspect outside the station following the gunshot, but was unaware he had fired off a round, the station reported.
Nathan allegedly told the station worker he had a message for the world and asked him to take his gun, but fled the scene with the weapon as more station workers filled the lobby, Fox 13 reported.
The alleged shooter then ran and barricaded himself in a nearby restaurant, WREG reported.
He made a beeline for the bathroom at Ubee’s where workers at first thought the man just wanted to relieve himself.
They originally locked the doors to the business after hearing about the active shooter threat, but then sprinted out of the establishment once they realized the man in the bathroom was the suspect, WREG reported.
Nathan livestreamed his standoff with police, pleading that he needed to “talk to news people. I got some information. I need to talk to news people,” the Commercial Appeal reported.
At one point he tried to leave the bathroom, and was met with authorities who ordered him to drop the weapon, according to the newspaper.
He quickly fled back inside the restroom.
“I have information,” he said on the livestream, the newspaper reported, “about crooked-ass police officers.”
He was eventually arrested without incident about two hours later, Memphis police said.
He’s reportedly facing aggravated assault and reckless endangerment charges.
A friend of Nathan said he called her right after the shooting. She said he meant no harm.
“He just called me and was like, ‘I just shot at the news station,” the woman who only wanted to be identified as Anne said, Fox 13 reported. “I just shot once, come get my gun.
“He didn’t want y’all to think he was trying to hurt y’all, he just wanted to be heard.”
The alleged shooter’s mother said her son is not a bad person, but has suffered from mental illness for years, according to the Commercial Appeal.
“I think the mental health problems started at 13, 14 years old,” Marsha McKinney said.
“I want [people] to know he’s not a bad person,” she also said. “He’s one of the nicest people, but everyone has another side to them. I think that my son is crying out for attention because anybody that would come to a news place and shoot, that is a cry for some help.”