Maine man nearly hits reporter with car

Journalist Joe Sokol was allegedly almost hit by a car while reporting in Bangor, Maine, on Oct. 1, 2026. The vehicle also knocked his camera and tripod to the ground.

Sokol, an investigative reporter for the Maine Wire — a conservative digital media outlet and project of the nonprofit think tank Maine Policy Institute — was reporting from the side of the road across from a drug addiction treatment center, according to the outlet and other reports.

A video posted by the outlet shows a vehicle pull up next to Sokol, who is standing in the grass holding a microphone and wearing a hat with the outlet’s logo.

“You’re invading people’s privacy here. Confidentiality. You realize that?” the male driver says.

“I’m invading people’s privacy? By being in public with a camera? And doing a report?” Sokol responds.

The man then drives out of the video frame. Sokol continues his report, describing the driver as “probably intoxicated.” The journalist can then be seen looking to his right and pivoting out of the way as a revving car engine is heard. The video is obscured as his camera and tripod are knocked to the ground.

Sokol can be heard on the video repeating a car’s license plate number.

The video then shows security footage from a nearby business that captures another angle of the incident. The vehicle drives toward the spot where Sokol is standing on the side of the road, appears to run over his camera and tripod, and then drives away.

In an interview with commentator Scott Jennings about the incident, Sokol said, “I felt like he was aiming for me” and that he believed his life was in danger.

Sokol added that the driver hit his tripod and camera, which flipped over the car. He said the tripod was “still good to go,” despite being hit.

The Bangor Police Department said in an emailed statement Oct. 2 that the driver, Ryan Hayward, had been arrested and charged with two felonies — reckless conduct with a dangerous weapon and criminal threatening with a dangerous weapon — as well as two misdemeanors.

A Bangor court clerk told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that as of Oct. 6, Hayward had been released on bail. He had yet to be indicted or enter a plea, the clerk added.

The Tracker has documented three other assaults of Maine Wire reporters in 2026. In September, an assault charge against a man who shoved Sokol while he was covering a July anti-Trump protest in Bangor was dismissed after the man wrote an apology letter and attended a three-hour meeting.