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A man with a knife injured himself outside the Today show studios on Rockefeller Plaza before being stopped by police and security personnel, Matt Lauer said on Thursday.
Witnesses said that the man had ranted about the Internal Revenue Service before yelling “I’m going to cut myself!” twice and attempting to harm himself, the New York Daily News reported.
Widely circulated amateur video captured by an apparent bystander, identified as @SirAnduck on Twitter, shows a man on the plaza being tackled by security. The Today show crew gave multiple updates on Twitter and addressed the incident on the morning program.
“There was an incident out on the plaza that we just want to tell you about,” Lauer stated. “A short time ago, a man out there attempted to harm himself with a knife. He did manage to cut himself. He was controlled by our security team out there. However, he did harm himself in some way, and so he’s now being attended to by medical personnel.”
The anchor also added that no one else was harmed during the incident and that, “we do understand that the individual did say something about not wanting to harm others, but wanting to cause harm to himself.”
NBC released the following statement about the incident:
This morning shortly before 8 a.m., a man attempted to harm himself on Rockefeller Plaza outside the TODAY show studio. He was quickly subdued by security officers on site and taken to an area hospital for treatment. We have strict security protocols in place to protect visitors to the TODAY show and those procedures were followed and effective. We are very grateful for the actions of our security team and the NYPD that no others visiting the show were harmed in the incident.
Watch Lauer speak about the incident:
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