Incident details
- Date of incident
- February 18, 2026
- Location
- Cheswick, Pennsylvania
- Targets
- Gabriella DeLuca (WPXI)
- Assailant
- Private individual
- Was the journalist targeted?
- Yes
Assault
WPXI journalist Gabriella DeLuca, reporting after a man allegedly tried to run her and a photographer over while covering a court hearing in Cheswick, Pennsylvania, on Feb. 18, 2026.
Gabriella DeLuca, a reporter for TV station WPXI, was nearly run over by a car outside a court building in Cheswick, Pennsylvania, on Feb. 18, 2026. The station identified the driver as the father of the defendant whose case she was covering.
After the hearing in the Pittsburgh suburb, DeLuca and photographer David Clark questioned Sean Dicer, a former teacher accused of sexually assaulting students, according to the Tribune-Review, which identified Clark.
Video published by the station shows Dicer and his father, Harold Dicer, getting into a white car and backing out of a parking space before accelerating toward the news crew.
“Are you going to run me over?” Clark can be heard saying.
In DeLuca’s news report, she said Sean Dicer avoided the camera and questions, but his father did not.
“He shouted explicit language toward our crew, and at one point accelerated his car, coming inches away from hitting us,” she said.
Harold Dicer is charged with simple assault, harassment and disorderly conduct, court records show. A preliminary hearing in the case is scheduled for April 22.
DeLuca did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker catalogs press freedom violations in the United States. Email tips to [email protected].
