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U.S.|Man Charged After Drive-by Shooting at Local ABC Station in Sacramento
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/20/us/sacramento-shooting-tv-news-station.html
Officers responding to the site of the shooting found that at least three rounds had hit the station’s window. No injuries were reported, and a motive was unclear.
Sept. 20, 2025, 8:13 p.m. ET
A Sacramento man was arrested and charged on Saturday morning after officials said he shot at a local television news station in the city the previous day.
Although the building was occupied at the time, nobody was hit by the gunfire, the Sacramento Police Department said, describing the attack as a drive-by shooting.
The suspect, Anibal Hernandez Santana, 64, of Sacramento, fired at least three rounds through a window of KXTV, a local ABC affiliate, at about 1:30 p.m. on Friday, a spokesman for the department said in a statement. A motive was unclear on Saturday.
Mr. Santana was arrested after the police identified a vehicle connected to the shooting, the spokesman said. The charges against Mr. Santana include assault with a deadly weapon, shooting into an occupied building and negligent discharge of a firearm. It was not clear if he had any representation. Efforts to reach his family were unsuccessful.
The attack came one day after demonstrators rallied in front of the station to protest its decision to pull Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night talk show off the air. ABC pulled the show indefinitely after conservatives had said Mr. Kimmel had inaccurately described the politics of the man accused of killing Charlie Kirk.
That decision, in turn, which also affected ABC affiliates nationwide, prompted an outcry from liberals and free speech advocates who said the move amounted to censorship.
Local ABC affiliate stations are not owned outright by ABC but enter into agreements with the network to broadcast some of ABC’s national content alongside their own. KXTV is owned by Tegna, which operates dozens of local news stations across the country.
“While details are still limited, importantly, all of our employees are safe and unharmed,” a spokeswoman for Tegna said in a statement on Saturday. “We are fully cooperating with law enforcement and have taken additional measures to ensure the continued safety of our employees.”
The F.B.I. provided resources to assist with the investigation into the shooting, the Sacramento police spokesman said.
The office of Gov. Gavin Newsom of California condemned the shooting in a statement posted to X, saying that “any act of violence toward journalists is an attack on our democracy itself and must be condemned in the strongest terms.”
Chris Hippensteel is a reporter covering breaking news and a member of the 2025-26 Times Fellowship class, a program for journalists early in their careers.
