Suspect in custody after driver rams car into staffed security gate at FBI building in Pittsburgh

An FBI seal is displayed on a podium before a news conference at the field office in Portland, Ore., Jan. 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane, File)

PITTSBURGH -- A suspect was in custody after a driver rammed a car into a staffed security gate at the FBI building in Pittsburgh early Wednesday, then removed an American flag from the back seat and threw it over the gate before leaving, authorities said.

“This was a targeted attack on this building,” Christopher Giordano, assistant special agent in charge of the FBI in Pittsburgh, told reporters. No personnel were injured.

The suspect, identified as Donald Henson of nearby Penn Hills, was taken into custody after 10 a.m., more than seven hours after the incident, officials said. No details on the motive or on how he was able to flee were immediately available, but the FBI said it was not treating it as a terrorism case, spokesperson Bradford Arick said.

No charges had been posted in a federal docket listing for Henson by early Wednesday afternoon, and federal prosecutors did not immediately return messages seeking comment. Giordano had said the FBI would pursue the case vigorously.

The FBI was familiar with Henson, whom Giordano described as a former member of the military. A message left at a phone number linked to him was not immediately returned.

“He did come here to the FBI field office a few weeks ago to make a complaint that didn’t make a whole lot of sense,” Giordano said.

He said the car appeared to have some sort of message on a side window, but did not elaborate. The car, a white sedan, also appeared to have a U.S. Air Force sticker on it.

Investigators, including a bomb squad, found no explosives at the scene.

The security gate is staffed around-the-clock by a federal contractor, Arick said.

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By Peter Smith

Associated Press writer Kathy McCormack in Concord, New Hampshire, and Maryclaire Dale in Philadelphia contributed to this report.