Posted on 08/14/2007 9:05:07 AM PDT by weegee
Staffers look for clues in drive-by at KPFT
No one was injured and there have been no arrests in the incident at Houston radio station
Staffers look for clues in drive-by at KPFT No one was injured and there have been no arrests in the incident at Houston radio station
A bullet hole in a window, an odd-caliber shell casing found in the street and the shadowy sighting of a slow-moving white car — that was all KPFT-FM staffers had to go on Monday as they searched for clues that might explain the early-morning drive-by shooting at their Montrose studio.
Police said they have made no arrests in the 12:55 a.m. shooting, in which the bullet came within 18 inches of striking zydeco program host Mary Thomas in the head. The incident marked the third violent episode at the iconoclastic, listener-supported Pacifica station in three years, General Manager Duane Bradley said.
Discussion on safety
Bradley said a staff meeting will be held at noon today to discuss security concerns. Station workers Monday listened to recordings of the previous night's programming, including the sometimes combative comments on a late-night talk show, in search of veiled threats.
The station, whose transmitter was twice dynamited by the Ku Klux Klan in the early 1970s, completed a weeklong fundraising drive Sunday, surpassing its $135,000 goal by 5 percent.
Bradley said the station may replace the shattered studio window, which faces Lovett, with bullet-proof glass and might upgrade a video surveillance system that monitors key parts of the property. They also may consider a key-card system for building access.
"We're kind of walking a tight rope," Bradley said. "We want to have an open environment, but we need to ensure safety of people at the station."
With the police investigation in its earliest stages, identifying a motive for the shooting is difficult. But, Bradley said, "my gut feeling is that this involved an offended listener."
Sunday's Community Dialogue program, which airs at 11 p.m., often can generate "wild exchanges on the air," Bradley said. But Sunday's program, dealing with antagonism between blacks and Hispanics, was relatively uneventful.
Sitting up saved host
Three people were standing in the doorway of the station in the 400 block of Lovett when a white car drove slowly past. As the vehicle reached the eastern edge of the station's property, the shot was fired. Staff member John Orr, among the group at the door, told Bradley he had seen the vehicle pass the station earlier in the evening.
Window blinds blocked visibility into the studio, Bradley said. Nonetheless, the bullet narrowly missed Thomas. "She normally likes to kick back when she's on the air," Bradley said. "But this time, she was sitting up straight. If she had been half-reclining, the bullet likely would have struck her head."
In 2005, youths hurled bricks at the station's windows. Last year, a station supporter who thought KPFT had been co-opted by Microsoft magnate Bill Gates telephoned threats to the station, then appeared in the studio parking lot with a shotgun.
As the man approached the station's front door, workers advised him they had summoned police. The man fled, Bradley said.
I know that we pay for this.
But on the Comical’s comments section was this:
http://www.chron.com/disp/commnts.mpl/headline/metro/5048850.html
thinkaloud wrote:
For the ill-informed who talk about this being a “left wing” propaganda unit sucking Tax Payer money, and who falsely compare it to their “right wing” propaganda units that don’t take Tax Payer money (theoretically), you don’t understand the difference between the two. Pacifica is a 503c3 (educational) foundation. But it is not your fault that you don’t know that, unless you’ve never listened to the station and are talking out of turn.
How can a moonbat claim that “theoretically” conservative talk radio takes tax payer money??? And Pacifica is a 501c3 and PROHIBITED by tax law from engaging in direct political advocacy. They can have a lobbyist group but not on air programming (that is not point-counterpoint debate) or party literature available to visitors (again without soliciting such materials from all major parties/candidates).
If it was a standard driveby, my SKS ejected straight up, and the case would have fallen back into the car...
Besides, according to CSI, a forensics guy can feed this case into a machine and the shooter's grade school and highschool records will come out...
It looks to me like what you said, 7.62x39, which is about as rare as illegals at Walmart. It looks like cheap Wolf steel casing, and it also looks like it’s been run over once or twice.
Station staff appeared on “Democracy? No!” today to discuss the shooting and raise hysteria about some phantom KKK-like menace...
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/08/15/1432245
There is nothing at all to indicate that this was from “the Right” (as if KKK are “Right”) and there was NO discussion of earlier arson fires at the station.
They played some “recreation” tapes of the KKK bombing of the transmitter in 1970s (complete with explosion sounds but since there is no microphone AT the transmitter, I think you’d just hear the signal dropping off, not a “boom” and rattle...).
They did discuss the shell that was found and said it is the type “used in AK-47s”.
Intellectually dishonesty abounds on Amy Goodman’s radio show.
“Good news” is that you can play just this segment by clicking the above link.
Years ago I saw a news show about some shootings in IIRC Los Angeles. They showed a brass that the cop identified as coming from an AK-47. You can imagine my surprise to learn that the AK-47 is chambered for .300 Savage, because the brass had that stamped on the bottom.
I don't know if the cop was that ignorent or just playing with the reporters. I might tell a reporter the same, but not on camera.
You’ll find references to the man with the shotgun but he doesn’t appear to have been someone upset with the left wing politics of the station. He was a conspiracy nut who though that Pacifica was “with” Microsoft.
And you’ll find references to the KKK bombings of the station’s transmitter in the earliest days of the station.
But you won’t find any public discussion of the infighting that has typified the environment at KPFT for the better part of a decade.
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