Man charged with ramming car into FBI gate in Pittsburgh later used Latin phrase about tyrants

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PITTSBURGH (AP) — A man who rammed a car into an FBI security gate in Pittsburgh and covered it in an American flag Wednesday later said he did it to “make a statement," the FBI said.

Donald Phillip Henson was captured seven hours after fleeing the crash and invoked a Latin phrase about tyrants, “sic semper tyrannis,” meaning “thus always to tyrants," while talking to the FBI, according to an affidavit. John Wilkes Booth is said to have shouted the phrase after shooting President Abraham Lincoln.

Henson, 46, of nearby Penn Hills, was being charged with assault with a deadly weapon and damaging government property. He will remain in custody until a detention hearing set for Tuesday.

“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.

No details on motive or how he was able to flee were immediately available.

The FBI was familiar with Henson, whom Giordano described as a former member of the military. Public records list him as a Republican who voted in the 2024 general election. A message left at a phone number linked to him was not immediately returned and court records did not list a defense lawyer.

“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 crash.

According to the affidavit, the security officer saw the vehicle come down the street and ram the gate, but thought the driver was having a medical emergency. The officer intended to leave the booth to investigate, but when the suspect returned to the car for the flag, the officer stayed inside fearing he might be retrieving a weapon.

Henson, in a bankruptcy filing last year, said he had $380,000 in student loan debt, few assets, a shuttered business called Insomnia Solutions, and $281 a month in income.

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Dale reported from Philadelphia. Associated Press writer Kathy McCormack in Concord, New Hampshire, also contributed.