THIRD MAN IN
11/29/01. 3:27pm CST. Work.

Something just "didn't seem right" about the guy, I was a little suspicious, so while I worked on my show I sort of kept an ear on the situation. I was sitting at K___’s desk when the man came into the newsroom. He asked to talk to D____, who was sitting near me, but she explained that she was on a long-distance phone call. He said he could wait. She said she would have to leave soon for an appointment, and couldn't talk to him about anything at this time. She asked him to call in the morning. He still wanted to talk to someone immediately, so D____ asked T____ (“W____”) to assist him. I continued to work on the 6pm scripts, but was close enough to hear the conversation he had with W____. W____ was very courteous with the man, and listened to what he had to say. W____ again made it clear that D____ was busy, and that he’d have to call in the morning to talk to someone. The man still didn’t like that idea, and started to become agitated. W____ continued to urge him to call in the morning, and the man became louder and more agitated.

Eventually, W____ asked him to leave. I was looking away when the man said “that’s assault,” but at that point I stopped working and looked up. W____ had a hand on the man’s shoulder, guiding him towards the door. The man called him an asshole, and W____ continued to walk him to the door. When they reached the inner newsroom door, where several people were now standing, there appeared to be some kind of struggle between W____ and the man. (I later heard that the man had lost his balance as W____ shoved him through the inner door.) By this point I was on my feet, but I couldn’t exactly tell at the time what had happened, since W____'s back was facing me. I saw B____ follow them out to help get rid of the guy, and I half-ran across to help as well. When I got there W____ and B____ had gotten the man through the outside door, but he was still struggling with W____. I saw W____’s glasses fly off, and reached in to help separate the man from him. During the last struggle, the man spit on W____. Finally, the group of us parted enough for him to walk away, and he shouted back towards us, and asked W____’s name (which W____ gladly gave him). I watched the man leave the parking lot heading west up 3rd Street, then came back inside. Shortly thereafter the doorbell rang several times, and the person who looked out said it was the same man again.

Postscript: Before leaving, the intruder had said he was going to the newspaper. We made sure they knew he was on the way, and they made sure the police were there to greet him. They picked him up, and later let him go since no one decided to press any charges. He told the police he had HIV, so the three of us who had come in contact with him (and the spitting part) were called in to be warned about that, in case we wanted to get tested, and to write out our personal accounts of the event in case anything more came up.

A month or two later, the same guy showed up here one last time. This time it was in the form of a mug shot: he had just been arrested for beating someone to death during some kind of drug transaction.