Ex-KTBC Employee Shoots Himself Outside News Corp Building in NYC

By Mark Joyella 

The Wall Street Journal reports a man who previously worked for the Fox-owned television station in Austin shot and killed himself outside News Corporation’s headquarters in New York Monday.

The newspaper, owned by News Corp, cites a law enforcement official identifying the man as Phillip Perea, 41, of Irving, Texas:

Mr. Perea had also been handing out fliers, which criticized his employer for having “ended my career,” moments before he shot himself, the official said.

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A suicide note and a gun were recovered at the scene, the official said. Mr. Perea took to his Twitter page about an hour before the shooting, further criticizing his former employer and linking to a more than 8-minute YouTube video laying out his complaints.

According to a video posted to YouTube (part of a series of posts entitled “The American Workplace Bully, How Fox News Ended My Career”), Perea was a promotions producer at Fox-owned KTBC in Austin, and was fired, he says, for “dubious reasons.”

Jack Abernethy, CEO of Fox Television Stations, has alerted employees to Perea’s death in an internal memo, obtained by TVNewser:

To All Employees—

This morning, a former employee at FOX 7-KTBC (Austin) committed suicide outside FOX Television Stations’ (FTS) headquarters in New York City. He was employed at our Austin television station for ten months and has not been with the station or FTS since June 2014. We are deeply saddened by this tragedy.

Jack Abernethy

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