A former employee of a Fox affiliate station in Texas, Fox 7-KTBC, fatally shot himself in protest outside the News Corp. building in Midtown Manhattan on Monday morning, authorities and sources said.
Phillip Perea, who previously worked as a former producer at a Fox affiliate in Austin, Tex., handed out business cards that said "The American Workplace Bully: How Fox News ended my career," hours before he shot himself, according to The Wall Street Journal. After being rushed to Bellevue Hospital in critical condition, he was declared dead for having suffered one bullet wound to the chest.
Kris Lew, an employee at a coffee truck next to the plaza, said she heard two shots.
"It was 'pop pop!' Just like that," Lew said. "The first one probably was a misfire."
Just before 9 a.m., the 41-year-old was found sitting slumped outside of the building on Sixth Avenue and West 47th Street, which houses Fox News Channel and several other media companies, cops and witnesses said. A small-caliber pistol was found on the ground next to him while a suicide note appeared to be inside his pocket, an FDNY spokesman said.
Prior to the shooting, Perea was heard protesting Fox, claiming that the compnay ruined his life, a source said. After asking the 41-year-old to leave the premises, security guards were walking back inside the building when they heard a gunshot, New York Post reported.
Earlier on Monday, Perea had also written a series of tweets and published a 23-minute YouTube video chronicling his issues with the network.
In the video, the station's general manager, identified only as Mike, tells Perea that his coworkers were "starting to fear you."
"I'm talking about the fact that you make some people uncomfortable," the manager says. "They're afraid of you."
"This morning, a former employee at Fox 7-KTBC committed suicide outside Fox Television Stations' headquarters in New York City," said company spokesman Jack Abernethy. "He was employed at our Austin television station for ten months and has not been with the station or FTS since June 2014. We are deeply saddened by this tragedy."
