News station in New Mexico goes dark for 90 minutes after intruder enters

A news station in New Mexico had to cut off their broadcast for over an hour on Sunday night after an intruder entered their building.

KRQE Media Group, a CBS affiliate in Albuquerque, released a statement late Sunday to explain that the outage occurred while police were searching the premises. 

{mosads}“An hour and a half later police gave us the all clear and we were able to continue our broadcast operations,” the statement read.

The Albuquerque Journal reported on Monday that an intruder entered the building around 8:30 p.m. and sat down at the news set.

The building was evacuated 30 minutes later.

#BREAKING KRQE TV, the CBS affiliate in Albuquerque went to color bars. There are reports that an #intruder is in the building. It’s been evacuated. KOB TV, the NBC Station is across the street. It’s on lockdown. pic.twitter.com/mIqWNVfOdK

— Sergio Quintana (@svqjournalist) July 2, 2018

Albuquerque Police officer Simon Drobik said police K-9s searched the building but did not locate the man.

KRQE reporter Madeline Schmitt posted on Twitter late Sunday and early Monday to say that everyone at the station was safe.

Everyone at KRQE is safe. We did not go on air tonight at 9 and 10 due to a situation that involved police. I will defer any further comment to my managers — but please know that we are all safe. Many thanks to the hard work of @ABQPOLICE!

— Madeline Schmitt (@madelinedenise) July 2, 2018

Waking up with a lot of gratitude. I believe that if this person wanted to hurt me and my weekend crew last night, he would have done it and I wouldn’t be typing this. I don’t know what his intentions were. I’m just glad to be here… and I’m still damn proud to be a journalist.

— Madeline Schmitt (@madelinedenise) July 2, 2018

The intrusion comes just days after a gunman entered the Capital Gazette newspaper offices in Annapolis, Md., and opened fire in what officials called a “targeted attack.”

The shooter killed five people and several others were wounded.

The alleged shooter was identified as 38-year-old Jarrod Ramos. He has since been charged with five counts of first-degree murder.