14 DAY TRIAL // The other day, NBC security and NYPD officers immobilized and arrested a man who had used a knife on himself in protest, outside The Today Show studio in Rockefeller Plaza. Pak Chong Mar says the IRS and government corruption led him to such desperate an action.
A video of the moment when police rushed and threw him to the ground is embedded below.
The New York Daily News has obtained photos of the man as he was slashing his wrists with the knife, but also a brief interview that sheds light into his gesture.
He says he never intended on harming anyone else but himself, but that his action was a sign of protest against the powers that be that brought him to financial ruin.
“I had to do something desperate to fight the corruption, fight the IRS. They are so powerful,” the Queens man tells the publication.
He claims something bad happened to him just hours before he slashed his wrists in such a public place, but the reporter can’t make too much sense of it. Moreover, the report notes, his family acts in such a way as to indicate he might be suffering from a mental disorder of some sort.
“I need people to help me fight for justice. 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,” Pak explains.
This shouldn’t happen to him, since he made at least $1 million (€755,800) since moving to the US, but the IRS and some banks robbed him, he laments.
The NY Daily News reveals that Pak was involved in a similar incident once before.
“According to police, back in August 1995, Pak used a meat cleaver to methodically chop off the pinky, ring finger and middle finger of his left hand — then he tossed each digit into the crowd gathered for the Hong Kong Dragon Board Festival in Flushing, Queens,” the e-zine writes.
His family says they’re still trying to establish what went wrong the other day.