Police: Man with knife, ax, sword entered New York Times building

A 27-year-old man entered the New York Times building on Thursday armed with a knife, ax and sword, according to police.

The man reportedly did not appear to threaten anyone but asked to speak with particular individuals at the Times, according to NBC New York.

The man complied with a request from security to put down the plastic bag containing the weapons and was taken to a local hospital, New York police said.

This comes as journalists have increasingly become targets of violence in recent years.

In perhaps the most high-profile recent attack on members of the media in the U.S., five reporters were killed and two more were injured in a 2018 mass shooting at the offices of the Capital Gazette newspaper in Annapolis, Md.

Outside of newsrooms, several journalists were also assaulted and had their equipment damaged during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. And more recently, a Las Vegas elected official was charged in September for allegedly stabbing a local investigative journalist to death, after he wrote critical articles about the official.