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Public Safety

Man shot by security guard in lobby of Fox 5 TV station

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October 22, 2018 at 10:30 p.m. EDT
A man was transported to a local hospital after being shot in the lobby of the Fox 5 television station Oct. 22 in Northwest Washington. (Video: WUSA9)

This story has been updated.

A man who kicked his way through two plexiglass doors at the Fox 5 television station in Northwest Washington

was shot and wounded by a security guard Monday afternoon, D.C. police said.

Police identified the man as George Odemns, 38, and said he has no fixed address. Odemns was admitted to George Washington University Hospital in critical but stable condition, and he was charged with second-degree burglary, police said.

News media have been on higher alert after a gunman walked into the Annapolis office of the Capital Gazette news­papers in June and killed five staff members.

Police said Odemns was not armed.

Video from two surveillance cameras, aired by Fox 5 News, showed the man wearing a red hooded sweatshirt walking up to the door, turning his back to the door and with one hard kick knocking out a panel that appears to be plexiglass. Police said the incident happened at 3 p.m.

The intruder then entered a small vestibule and began kicking a second door opening to the lobby, the surveillance video shows. After five kicks, he was able to pull down the plexiglass from the second door. He then climbed through the door and into the lobby of the longtime WTTG offices at 5151 Wisconsin Ave. NW.

Police Cmdr. Melvin Gresham declined to describe what happened next between the intruder and the security guard or whether she exchanged words with the man or used any less-than-lethal weapons. The security guard fired once and hit the man in the upper torso, Gresham said.

Court records show that Odemns has filed more than two dozen federal lawsuits in recent years alleging that he is being controlled by a microchip planted in his head. All have been dismissed.

In 2014, Odemns sued Fox 5 in D.C. Superior Court, also claiming that the station controlled him with an “illegal nano-chip” and seeking $100 billion in damages.

In November, records show that Odemns was placed under emergency psychiatric care in the District after emailing death threats to D.C. police and the D.C. Office of Human Resources and threatening a federal judge who had dismissed one of his suits. In addition, he was involuntarily committed in 2015, court records show.

Odemns was charged with murder in the District in 2002, but court records indicate that the charge was dismissed soon after he was arrested.