Bangor Driver Aimed His Jeep at a Conservative Reporter and Then Phoned the Newsroom

A blue Jeep Compass swerved onto the grass outside a Bangor methadone clinic and came straight at a reporter.

Conservative Maine Wire reporter Joe Sokol jumped clear, and cameras caught the whole thing.

Hours later, the man behind the wheel got on the phone with Sokol's editor and started talking.

What Joe Sokol Was Filming Outside the Methadone Clinic

On the morning of October 1, Sokol was standing on public property across from the Bangor Comprehensive Treatment Center.

He was there to ask questions about money.

According to The Maine Wire's reporting, the clinic pulled in more than $20 million in Medicaid funding between 2018 and 2024.

That money flows through MaineCare, the state's Medicaid program, and every dollar of it belongs to Maine taxpayers.

Asking where it goes is the most basic job in journalism.

A man approached and confronted him.

"You're kinda invading people's privacy here, confidentiality, you realize that?" the man said.

Sokol kept working.

Moments later he came back behind the wheel, pulled out of a nearby driveway, put the Jeep on the grass, and drove straight at Sokol.

Sokol leaped aside, and the Jeep clipped his camera equipment as it roared past.

The Maine Wire joked afterward that his heart rate never topped 75 beats per minute.

He memorized the plate – 841-LZD – and surveillance footage of the whole thing went public.

The Phone Call the Driver Should Never Have Made

Most men who drive at a reporter go quiet.

This one called the newsroom.

Maine Wire Editor-in-Chief Steve Robinson says the caller gave him a 10-minute phone interview, and the outlet turned it over to the Department of Justice.

Asked why he drove off the road, the man said, "He just kind of fired me up, so, I don't know."

He denied trying to run anyone over.

He said Sokol had disrespected him.

He complained about "the way he talks, like, bad about addicts and stuff."

Robinson says the caller knew exactly who Sokol was, had been watching his videos, and singled him out over politics.

That is not road rage.

That is a man who decided a reporter's coverage deserved a 3,000-pound answer.

Robinson said the driver "expressed a clear intent to stop him from conducting routine journalism."

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Four Charges That Robinson Calls Preposterous

Bangor police arrested Ryan Hayward, 38, of Bangor on October 2.

He faces four charges.

Reckless conduct with a dangerous weapon.

Criminal threatening with a dangerous weapon.

Driving to endanger.

Violating conditions of release – meaning he was already out on bail conditions when he climbed behind the wheel.

Bangor police moved fast, making an arrest within about a day, and they deserve credit for it.

Robinson is not satisfied with the charges.

He says Hayward "tried to murder him in an act of targeted political violence," and he wants federal prosecutors involved.

He has a point.

That charge list would fit a road-rage blowup on the interstate.

It does not fit a man who drives across a lawn at a reporter and then calls to complain about the reporter's coverage.

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Maine Wire Reporters Keep Paying for Asking Questions

Sokol is not the first Maine Wire reporter to take a hit.

At an anti-ICE protest in Biddeford, reporter Jon Fetherston was struck in the head with a skateboard.

After he covered a protest in Scarborough, somebody slashed his car tire.

Protesters chanted his home address, and the death threats followed.

Nobody knows yet what Ryan Hayward believes.

What matters is what he told Robinson – he went after a reporter over the way that reporter covers a story.

Andy Ngo learned on a Portland street in 2019 what happens when people decide a conservative journalist's camera is the enemy.

Maine Wire reporters are learning the same lesson one confrontation at a time.

Picture the coverage if a man had driven a Jeep at a CNN reporter outside a Trump rally.

It would be wall-to-wall.

There would be panels, press freedom statements, and demands for federal hate crime charges by sundown.

Joe Sokol was standing on public property asking about Medicaid money.

That is the exact question Augusta should be asking, and a reporter nearly got run down for asking it first.

Prosecutors in Penobscot County should treat it like what it was – an attempt to shut a reporter up with a bumper.

Sources:

• Hannah Nightingale, "Man Tries to Run Down Maine Wire Journalist for Reporting on Bangor Methadone Clinic," The Post Millennial, October 1, 2026.
• John Loftus, "Driver Caught on Video Nearly Mowing Down Investigative Journalist Outside Methadone Clinic," Daily Caller, October 1, 2026.
• Bob Hoge, "Insane in Maine," RedState, October 1, 2026.
• Bob Hoge, "Maniac Who Tried to Mow Down Conservative Reporter Enters the Finding Out Phase," RedState, October 2, 2026.
• LifeZette, "Maine Man Accused of Trying to Mow Down Conservative Reporter Enters the Find Out Phase," LifeZette, October 3, 2026.
• Chris Donaldson, "'Preposterous': Charges Slammed After Man Arrested for Allegedly Targeting Reporter With Vehicle," BizPac Review, October 3, 2026.