There are security failures and there are security failures at the headquarters of one of the most recognizable television programs in American broadcast history that produce a TMZ exclusive and a Raw Story headline describing a stranger slipping past security at NBC’s Rockefeller Center headquarters in Midtown Manhattan, New York, forcing his way deep inside the building while specifically looking for Al Roker, and finding Craig Melvin, and then lunging at Craig Melvin.
The man breached the “Today” show’s security Thursday morning, per Raw Story’s confirmed reporting today, navigating through NBC’s security infrastructure at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York City to reach deep inside the building where the “Today” show’s production operations are located, which is the specific depth that indicates the breach was not a lobby incident or a street confrontation but a sustained penetration of multiple security checkpoints. He was described as having been hunting specifically for Al Roker, which is the anchor the intruder sought, and having found Craig Melvin instead, which is the anchor who was available, and having lunged at Melvin, which is the action that produced the security response, the police involvement, and the TMZ exclusive video.
Al Roker, who has been the “Today” show’s weather anchor since 1996 and whose public profile includes a Guinness World Record for the longest continuous weather broadcast, was not at the location where the man was looking for him, which is the circumstance that made Craig Melvin the person who was lunged at. Melvin has been a “Today” show anchor since 2018. Being lunged at by a man who came for someone else is a professional hazard that his contract presumably does not address.
NBC’s Rockefeller Center headquarters has security personnel, credentials requirements, and access controls appropriate for a major television network whose morning programming is watched by several million people daily, and which apparently produced a situation where a man with stated intentions toward a specific anchor was able to penetrate to a depth described as “deep inside” the building before reaching another anchor and lunging. NBC has not yet described what went wrong. The “Today” show aired Friday morning.
When a man specifically hunting for one anchor gets deep inside a major network building and lunges at a different anchor, what exactly was the security doing?
Sources
Raw Story: Racist hunting for Al Roker lunges at Today show host in ‘huge’ security breach
