Talk about an absurd scene from "Network."
A "Today Show" suicide scare hit the news on Thursday when Pak Chong Mar, a man in his 70s, sliced his wrists with a box cutter in front of Rockefeller Plaza where tourists were lined up for the morning's filming, the Associated Press reported. Police and security officers were forced to tackle the man to stop him from slashing his arms.
Although Mar was a lone individual and not a terrorist, he had been spotted ranting about the IRS and handing out flyers shortly before he began to cut himself up, news reports said. Some were unsure what to make of his protest.
Pak Chong Mar said that he acted in order to draw attention to corruption in the IRS
"I had to do something desperate to fight the corruption, fight the IRS...If I don't do something drastic, sooner or later these guys are going to kill me anyway. I couldn't even pay rent this month," Mar said at Bellevue Hospital while being interviewed on his gurney, according to New York Daily News.
Pak Chong Mar emigrated from China to New York in 1948, according to the press. He told NY Daily News that he became a millionaire trading stocks while working humble jobs running a store and waiting tables, but the IRS somehow took it all.
Before the Today show suicide attempt, he was seen distributing a flyer, which accused the IRS of taking $300,000 from his bank accounts and starting the process to seize nearly $1 million more.
Pak Chong Mar, reportedly, is the same man who cut off three fingers and tossed them into the crowd during a 1995 Hong Kong Dragon Boat Festival in Flushing, New York. His daughter believed that he became overwhelmed when he couldn't understand his tax obligations arising from his stock-trading transactions.
"[I]t's a cry for help. If [he] was suicidal he would have done something much more drastic," she said.
Mar's injuries aren't life-threatening, and he should recover with the appropriate care.
There's no evidence that anyone else was in any danger during the Today show suicide attempt.
"There was an incident out on the plaza," "Today Show" host Matt Lauer explained on Thursday.
"A man tried to harm himself with a knife. He did manage to cut himself. He was controlled by our security team out there...He's being treated by medical personnel."
