After Intruder Walked In, TV Station Abruptly Cancelled Newscasts

A New Mexico television station abruptly canceled its evening newscasts Sunday after an unknown man walked into the building and onto the station's news set.

In a brief statement late Sunday night, CBS affiliate KRQE said it had to abandon the two newscasts while police searched the building in downtown Albuquerque.

"An hour and a half later police gave us the all clear and we were able to continue our broadcast operations," the station said.

The Albuquerque Police Department didn't respond to requests for comment on Monday morning.

But the agency told NBC News that a man in his early 20s with a backpack walked into the KRQE newsroom, just days after a gunman opened fire at a newspaper office in Annapolis, Maryland, killing five people.

The man in Albuquerque was escorted out of KRQE's building, but he later returned.

Officer Simon Drobik, a police spokesman, said authorities were called to the building at about 8:30 p.m. after the man sat down in the newsroom's set, the Albuquerque Journal reported.

The building was evacuated as police dogs swept the building. NBC affiliate KOB, which is across the street, was also placed on lockdown.

Employees were allowed back in just before 11 p.m. Police did not find the man.

"Everyone at KRQE is safe," station reporter and weekend anchor Madeline Schmitt tweeted later that night. "We did not go on air tonight at 9 and 10 due to a situation that involved police. I will defer any further comment to my managers - but please know that we are all safe. Many thanks to the hard work of @ABQPOLICE!"

Information about the man's identity and reason for entering the building was not immediately available. NBC reported that he did not make any threats when he was escorted off the property. Police are still investigating.

"Given the recent attacks on media outlets, we were not going to take any chances," Drobik said, according to the Albuquerque Journal.

On Thursday, a lone gunman killed five people and injured two others after he fired a shotgun through the glass doors of the Capital Gazette newspaper in Annapolis. Police said Jarrod Ramos had a personal grudge against the newspaper. The Washington Post reported that he lost a defamation case against the Capital Gazette in 2015 over a column that he claimed defamed him.

Ramos has been charged with five counts of first-degree murder. Five employees - Gerald Fischman, Rob Hiaasen, John McNamara, Rebecca Smith and Wendi Winters - were killed.

The attack, which prompted heightened security in newsrooms nationwide, appears to be the deadliest one carried out against journalists in the United States in decades.