NBC has stepped up security at the "Today" studio in Manhattan after co-host Craig Melvin was accosted in a vestibule and months after the unsolved abduction of fellow co-host Savannah Guthrie's mother from her home in Tucson, Arizona, according to a new report.
"It was much-needed and took longer than people would have liked, but it does feel a lot better now," an unnamed insider new security measures later that month in an internal memo obtained by Variety. NBC sources later confirmed its authenticity.
One change outlined in the memo was that guests can now be accompanied by only two people — whether they be stylists, spokespersons, social media aides or other "support personnel."
While Guthrie and her colleagues were still reeling from the kidnapping, a homeless man identified as 41-year-old Andrew Truelove snuck onto the set, allegedly hunting for Al Roker.
He found Melvin instead in a vestibule inside a secure area of the studio and allegedly accosted him with a racial slur.
A review of footage from the "Today" show that morning reveals a man resembling Truelove and wearing the same clothing was pictured in the background repeatedly in the 8 a.m. hour.
Truelove has a criminal record going back decades and in 2007 was convicted of trying to abduct an 8-year-old from a school in Norfolk, Virginia.
He faces hate crime charges of burglary, a felony, and menacing, a misdemeanor, in connection with the Melvin incident.
Court records in New York show a man with the same name and age as Truelove has additional pending cases in connection with an alleged assault in the NYPD's 5th Precinct in January, trespassing and reckless endangerment charges on the city's transit system from May — and a 12-count criminal mischief indictment from last year.