Stealing is unhealthy—everyone knows that. Nonetheless, generally a theft is so masterly that it transcends our ethical system and turns into spectacular. I might argue that that is the case with a theft that passed off in Jasper, Alabama, the place unknown thieves lately ransacked a neighborhood radio station, stealing every part in sight, together with a 200-foot, stainless-steel radio tower that needed to be lower down and carted off through unknown means.
Native information outlet WBRC first reported on the theft, which impacted WJLX’s AM station. The station supervisor, Brett Elmore, first realized of the theft final Friday, when a bunch of landscapers who have been despatched to work on the property reported again that it had been robbed and that its radio tower was lacking.
Elmore mentioned he couldn’t consider what he was listening to. “When he arrived, he referred to as me Friday and mentioned, ‘The tower is gone,’” Elmore advised the native information outlet. “I mentioned, ‘What do you imply the tower is gone? Are you certain you’re on the proper place?’ He mentioned, ‘The tower is gone. There’s wires in every single place, and it’s gone.’”
The thieves seem to have stolen the tower by slicing the cables that held it in place, Elmore mentioned in a Fb submit. In the identical submit, the station supervisor famous that the radio station had additionally “been vandalized” and that the robbers in query “stole every bit of apparatus out of the constructing.”
You need to surprise what sort of wicked Danny Ocean is behind this type of operation. It doesn’t precisely scream “bored teenager.” A information station rival attempting to take out their competitors? The thoughts boggles on the potentialities.
Whoever they’re, they might be in numerous hassle, in the event that they’re caught. The New York Put up notes that it’s a federal crime to tamper with radio stations on this means, and the perpetrators may withstand 10 years in jail.
Gizmodo reached out to the Jasper Police Division to substantiate the main points of the theft offered by Elmore. We’ll replace this story if it responds.