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Colorado Media Newsroom
February 22nd, 2013, 05:40 AM
From Westword:

Well, so, we finally got to the bottom of this whole alleged Smiths radio ambush we told you about earlier this week that supposedly took place over two decades ago (http://blogs.westword.com/backbeat/2013/02/myth_the-smiths_radio_station_hostage_1987.php). We set out on a mission to once and for all debunk this long held myth involving a deranged gunman who apparently forced a local radio station to play four hours of continuous music by the Smiths. Turns out, the story is actually true -- well, sort of. It happened, alright, just not the way everybody thinks it did. And from everybody we've spoken with, nobody quite seems to agree on what exactly happened that day or how it went down.


To Air is human...to research is divine:
As you might recall, the incident first came to our attention through Mark Simpson's biography, Saint Morrissey: A Portrait of This Charming Man by an Alarming Fan. In his book, Simpson -- presumably based on a 1994 Details interview with Morrissey by William Shaw -- details an incident in which a fan supposedly stages a hostile takeover of a radio station and demands the station air songs by the Smiths. The story, which is long rumored to have inspired the plot line for Airheads, the 1994 movie starring Brendan Fraser, Steve Buscemi, Adam Sandler, in which they embark on a similar scheme, reportedly forms the basis for a forthcoming film titled Shoplifters of the World.

Problem is, we couldn't find anybody, locally or otherwise, to either confirm or deny the validity of the story, which, frankly, to us, seemed a bit too fantastical to be true -- mostly because we lived here at the time (well, one of us anyway), and we have absolutely zero recollection of something like this happening. I mean, surely we would've heard something about this, right? You'd think. Considering how dramatically the news media coverage has changed since then, though, it's easy to see how something like this would have escaped our notice now, what with the steady stream of information disseminated via social media, coupled the non-stop churn of the 24/7 news cycle, if something like this were to happen today, it would make headlines, but only for a short period of time before ultimately being pushed out of promience by another barrage of stories.

But back then, this had to be major news, right? You'd think. Not so much, it seems. The whole thing had us mystified. So we decided to summon our vast investigative powers. I mean, who doesn't love a little myth busting -- or Smiths busting, in this case. So in our first attempts to begin debunking the myth, we reached out to both Simpson and a source working on the film, and while separately, they each expressed that they firmly believe the tale to be true, neither could cite a credible source. In due diligence, we also spoke with Gil Asakawa, Westword's music editor at the time, and he didn't recall anything like this ever happening (although we were later able to dig up his write-up in our archives -- more on that in a minute).

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A few days later, thanks to a tip from our pal and fellow Morrissey afficionado, Tyler Jacobson of Lipgloss and Mile High Soul Club fame -- who swore he remembered seeing a news clipping that had been tucked into a "Everyday is Like Sunday" cassette single a friend had loaned him in the late '80s -- we finally tracked down the original write-up in the Denver Post, confirming that the is incident indeed took place. The Post's account, however, differs from how it was later referenced, first by Details in 1994 and later in Mark's Simpson's 2005 biography.

Details, Details: The origin of this particular urban Smith and how it's been perpetuated over the years:

From William Shaw's 1994 Details Magazine interview:
"Once, in 1987, a young man in Denver held the local radio station at gunpoint, demanding that they play only Smiths songs. For four hours they complied and the Colorado airwaves were filled with the then-unfamiliar sound of Morrissey, until the police persuaded the gunman to back down. When Morrissey heard what had happened he felt, of course, extreme pleasure. 'But how did you know about it?' he demands. 'I've never come across anybody who knew about it.' The fact that the siege has never been properly reported anywhere outrages Morrissey. 'If it was any other artist, it would have been world news. But because it was poor old tatty Smiths it was of no consequence whatsoever.'"

From Mark Simpson's 2005 biography:
"In 1987 a distressed young man in Denver, Colorado held his local radio station hostage insisting, at gun point, they play nothing but Smiths records. This they did -- for four hours -- inflicting Morrissey on the good Christian people of Colorado, who up until that point had been for the most part blissfully unaware of his existence. Eventually, the police besieging the building persuaded the unhappy young man to give himself up.
This was both an unhinged, impotent romantic gesture and a dangerous, revolutionary act. If any music ever had a chance of changing the world, or at least giving it some seriously bad dreams, it was the music of The Smiths. The fervent zeal of this mad lad who forced the Denver radio station to saturate the airwaves of his hometown with records by this obscure, depraved British band was, in its own casualty-free way more 'murderous' and ambitious than the rage of the two young shallow nihilists who went on a shooting spree many years later in their High School in Littleton, also in Colorado."

So what really happened?

According to Post, who first reported the incident, and later confirmed by Asakawa, who made reference to the arrest in his Off Beat column in Westword the following week, an unnamed eighteen year old Arvada man spent what police officials at the time speculated was months staking out the studios of Y108 (aka KRXY, the now defunct CHR station that used to broadcast on the 107.5 frequency now occupied by KS-107), with presumed plans to ambush the station and take several employees hostage and then force them at gunpoint to play songs of the Smiths. That part of the story matches up with everything else that had previously been written.

What happened next, however, is where myth and reality seem to respectfully part ways, and the story takes on a life of its own. According to the Post, the gunman, who showed up at the station armed with a rifle, plus seven Smiths cassette tapes and an album, but his mettle dissolved apparently before he was able to execute his plan, and he never made it inside the building. Instead, he sat in the parking lot and reportedly asked for the police to be notified, after which he reportedly ended up turning himself in.

From the Post's article:
"A last minute change of heart apparently averted the hijacking of a Lakewood radio station but left an Arvada teenage in jail Wednesday.
The young man, 18, was arrested Tuesday evening in the parking lot of the radio station Y-108 at 7075 W. Hampden Ave. after he called a station employee over to his car handed the employee a rifle and asked that police be called, said police spokesman John Hunt.

'I was going to hijack the station. I wanted to make them play some music,' blurted out the suspect when police arrived. He was taken into custody without incident and jailed under a $50,000 bond for investigation of attempted extortion and attempted kidnapping."

After some digging, we finally found a brief mention in Asakawa's column, which ran the following week after the incident. According to his account, the gunman actually made it into the station, at which point he reconsidered and turned over his weapon.

From Asakawa's Off Beat column in Westword:
"Security by Smiths and Wesson: Radio station KRXY (Y-108), the Lakewood-based Top 40 station, got a request that was hard to ignore. An eighteen-year-old Arvada man entered the station with a rifle to insist the station play seven tapes and an album by the Smiths, the now-defunct British band led by the whiny-voiced singer, Morissey. [sic] The man was arrested after he changed his mind and gave the weapon to a station employee. He's now in the Jefferson County Jail, awaiting a psychiatric evaluation. The gun-toting Smiths fan set a dangerous precedent, using scare tactics to try and control the media. No radio station, no matter what the format, deserves that kind of treatment. But the lighter side, the fan should have known better than to request the Smiths from a Top 40 station. As far as Top 40's concerned, Morissey might as well be a Martian. For his Smiths fix, the guy should've thrown his gun into the lake and tuned in to Fort Collins' KTCL, which plays the band in regular rotation."
In his biography, Simpson draws a loose and seemingly incidental correlation to the Columbine tragedy, which of course happened a decade later. The irony is that the arresting officer in this particular Smiths-related incident was actually a member of the SWAT unit at the time, and later also happened to be one of the officers who responded to Columbine, which sits almost exactly five miles to the south, on that tragic afternoon in 1999. We spoke with the officer, and for his part, some 25 years later, he had no recollection of the incident.

Okay, so now that we know what, we should probably ask ask Y:
In the more than two decades that have passed since this incident happened, things have obviously changed dramatically. For starters, it's hard to imagine that with the vast array of listening options these days from Internet streaming and iPhone apps to satellite radio and terrestrial radio (not to mention Spotify and Pandora), it's hard to imagine that it would even occur to anyone to attempt to pull a stunt off like this one.

Besides the fact that most stations these days are mostly inaccessible, ensconced fortress-like in nondescript mid-rises in densely populated commercial areas rather than some converted house studio in the foothills, accessible to anyone with a gun and an ill-conceived plan, a takeover plot such as this would ultimately prove to be exasperating. These days, the playlists are completely automated, so it's not exactly like the DJs are sitting around spinning records.

We caught up with several former Y108 employees, and each person we spoke with seems to have a different recollection of the events of that day. Jim Prain, general manager of sales, even remembers the kind of weapon the kid had. "It was a small armed, single-shot, bolt-action 22 rifle," he recalls, noting that he knows this because he had one just like it at the time. Mark Bolke, meanwhile, remembers returning to the station and seeing the guy in the parking lot, not yet arrested, and Bolke says he stayed inside for safety.

Out of the DJs we reached out to -- Dom Testa, Dave Otto and Michael Moon, all of whom were very well known and well regarded on-air personalities in Denver at the time and are still working in radio, here in Denver and in different parts of the country -- none were on the air at the time, but they each remember the day the incident happened.

"Truth be told, I was away from the radio station at the time it happened, but I did return about an hour later," writes Testa, now co-host of the long running Mix 100 morning show with Jane London. "The disturbed young man never entered the building. Our receptionist told me that he was detained in the Y108 parking lot while police were summoned. I'm pretty sure that he never made it inside.

"I also believe that he never actually threatened anyone with a gun (if he even had one), but mostly spewed nonsense, including his passionate request for The Smiths," his note continues. "Perhaps he SAID he had a weapon. Hey, in those days we had our share of interesting folks listening to the station...and we didn't even PLAY The Smith's, for crying out loud."

Testa concurs with Asakawa's assertion about KTCL, but also thinks that "the better option for a Morrissey fan at that time would've been 'BCO," he points out. "I suppose Boulder would've been too far of a walk, which is too bad, because I'll bet my friend Ginger would've at least dropped in 'How Soon Is Now' just to placate the poor dude.

"This is one of those legends that bloats with time," Testa concludes. "It's morphed from 'detained in the parking lot' to 'held hostage for four hours at gunpoint.'"

Indeed, but until we get a chance to read the full police report -- which we've requested and should hopefully have in our hands later this afternoon -- we can't say for certain exactly what happened that day. But keep an on this page for an update, most likely on Monday morning, when we'll post a full rundown of the arrest report.

more (http://blogs.westword.com/backbeat/2013/02/smiths_myth_80s_radio_takeover.php)

Rob
February 25th, 2013, 05:08 PM
From Westword:

What really happened according to the police report

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From examining the letters he wrote to his parents, included in the original Lakewood police file, and the details of that harrowing and fateful day in the fall of 1988 from the original offense report, one thing becomes clear: James Kiss was a very troubled young man with a seemingly dastardly plan. But yet, according to Agent Hitchins, who spoke with both witnesses, and Agent Hinkle, who obtained a confession from the suspect, the eighteen year old boy simply gave himself up inexplicably without any sort of struggle and handed over his weapon. It was odd ending, considering that he purchased the rifle, a Remington .22 caliber Apache 77, just a few days earlier, specifically with the intent of taking over the radio station at gunpoint and then forcing them to play the music of the Smiths.

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The building that once housed Y108 studios at 7075 W. Hampden Avenue... and later 96.5 The Peak.

That was the plan anyway, and Kiss had already evidently run through it in his head hundreds of times and even driven past the station and/or visited more than two dozen times in the six months preceding, sometimes even going as far as to venture into the station and engaging the receptionist with incidental chatter. But this particular Tuesday night, he had finally mustered the nerve to make the trek from his suburban home in Arvada to the station on the western edge of Lakewood just off a frontage road on West Hampden Avenue. Armed with a rifle, six Smiths cassette tapes and one Morrissey album, he was ready to make a statement.

He couldn't have picked a more unlikely place to stage such a coup. At least on paper, the station seemed like a completely incongruous choice. In 1988, Y108 was the top rated station in town, but it was also a Top 40 station with a narrow playlist that consisted of a steady stream of superficiality that ranged from "Don't Worry Be Happy" by Bobby McFerrin to Poison's "Don't Need Nothing But a Good Time."

It's a safe bet that back then none of the listeners and probably hardly any of the on-air staff had even heard of the Smiths, much less played them before. What's more, as poppy as the songs are, in retrospect, the notably more dour aesthetic of the band, particularly from a lyrical standpoint, would've been as foreign a prospect to listeners as Bollywood ballads piped in directly from Bombay. Such a grandiose gesture, in the case, would've no doubt been completely lost on the masses.

Just the same, he went through with it -- or he planned to anyway, until he lost his nerve, as the newspaper put it the next day in a pithy blurb. Tersely written in almost police blotter-like fashion, the item didn't even include his name. Reading the item the next morning, you can almost imagine how it might've seemed almost like a non-event to folks. The incident was quite eventful, however, for Greg Fadick, the Y108 production director who ended up relieving Kiss of his rifle after unsuspectingly encountering him in the parking lot, and Pam Hall, who later phoned the police.

According to the police report, Fadick was leaving his office just after 5 p.m. and making his way to his truck. A guy in a car next to him, a brown Oldsmobile station wagon motioned for Fadick to roll his window down. The man said something to him, something Fadick couldn't hear, so he got out of his truck and approached the vehicle. Fadick asked the man what he had said, and the man replied, "Tell those people to call the police," and then motioned toward the studio, a converted split-level house. Fadick stood motionless for a moment, the report says, before "Kiss pushed the butt end of the rifle into his stomach, and said, 'Here, take this.'"

With the rifle in his hands and absolutely no idea of what was happened, Fadick hastily made his way back into the station. Once he made it safely through the doors, he asked Hall to call the police. Hall, in turn, thought he was kidding, until he said, "No, I'm not kidding. This guy outside gave me this gun, and he told me to call the cops." Convinced that Fadick was indeed not kidding, Hall phoned Lakewood Police and reported what was happening, and they responded immediately by sending out four officers to deal with the situation.

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When Agent Hinkle arrived at the station just before 5:30 p.m., he found the suspect sitting calmly behind the wheel of his car. Upon engaging him, officer Hinkle ordered the suspect out of the car and frisked him for weapons. While he was patting him down, Hinkle noticed a green rifle case, plus live .22 caliber rounds and a magazine clip resting on the dashboard, and that's when he began to ask questions.

"Not knowing what was going on," he writes in the report, "I asked the general threshold question, 'What's going on partner?'" to which the suspect confessed, "'I was gonna hijack it, but I lost my nerve.' I said, 'hijack what?' Suspect kiss replied, 'The radio station -- I was going to make 'em play some tapes, but I couldn't go through with it.'"

That was enough for Hinkle, who found probable cause and placed him under arrest, while Agent Hitchens interviewed the witness and Agent Binks processed the crime scene, seizing the suspicious items in the car with the approval of the suspect, who had evidently consented to the search. When Bink surveyed the vehicle, he found a cartridge with ten .22 caliber rounds in it, along with forty other rounds remaining in a fifty round box in a plastic cup holder and a pellet gun on the rear floorboard. Along with the arsenal, on the frontseat, Binks located a Smiths album on the front seat and a green backpack containing several cassettes, six featuring the Smiths and one featuring Morrissey.

On the way to the police station, meanwhile, Agent Hinkle advised the suspect of his Miranda rights, which he subsequently waived, at which point, Hinkle discussed the situation with the suspect, who laid out his plan about making the station play the music of the Smiths, explaining that "he would fire a round into the ceiling, if necessary, to convince them he was serious," according to Hinkle's report.

Kiss then evidently pointed out that the Smiths "play music about how insensitive everyone is," and added that he was planning to play their music as a protest. "Later, he alluded to one of their songs, which calls for a 'brave protest,'" Hinkle noted in his report. Kiss next explained that "he picked Y108 because they're number one,'" wrote Hinkle, noting the larger listening base, "and because they play Top 40 music, which the Smiths and Kiss regard as shallow, meaningless."

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After revealing to Hinkle that he'd been by the station in August with a B.B. gun and had otherwise stopped by the station a number of times previously, he explained how he had left the manual for the rifle, along with his insurance card and car registration in a bag to be turned over to authorities after he took over the station, "that way we would know who he was, and that he was serious," Hinkle wrote, adding that Kiss's plan was to take four hostages and let everybody else go. After being booked and processed, Kiss was taken to Jefferson County jail.

Hinkle added some additional notes on the report, noting that, "In Kiss's left front shirt pocket was a photo button of a man he said is 'Morrisey [sic]'," one of the leaders of 'Smiths,'" and that Kiss purportedly told him that "he has felt like he 'doesn't fit' in today's world. He says he doesn't have any friends, and is also despondent because he's got hip problems which will require surgery."

What Hinkle and the officers didn't know -- and couldn't possibly have known at the time -- was the level of Kiss's despondency. When Arvada police searched his home, again with his consent, they found a magazine about the Smiths, a poem and pair of letters, which were entered into evidence. In the letters penned to his parents just before the incident, Kiss spelled out exactly what he was planning and tried to explain why.

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The first letter, dated four days before the incident:

Dear Mom and Al,
What ever I do today is not meant to hurt you. I love you and hold a great deal of respect for you, and if you should be hurt by what I'm going to do I feel very sorry. I feel your biggest question is going to be why, so I'll try and explain

My views of life and the world are dismal at best. I don't feel right here. I feel as if I'm out of place. My spirit is lost and my body is pollution filled. I always dream about the past, about giving my life for someone else, and about doing things I can never do. It's my only escape. I believe life never ends. When a person dies he is just born again. Therefore people shouldn't let themselves be tied by the codes of the day, and if someone's life is not going well, it would be just as easy to quit and start again. I could write a book of my opinions, but no would want to read it.

I guess what I'm doing is a protest about life. The world's dying and most don't care, and if they do care there is nothing to do about it because man is the problem. Whoever or whatever made the human race made a big mistake. My views of life are in the "poems" I have written. Some of them show hope, but it quckly dies in others. A lot in the first book have nothing to do with my views.

The second book shows my interest in Morrissey and the first time I planned to do this (this is the second) I think my ideas are mounting somewhat stemmed from Morrissey. There's no doubt his words have changed me and in a way the Smiths and Morrissey are one reason I'm doing this. The third book continues from the second. I want you to know my exact plan.

I have bought a gun for this time. When I tried it the first time I had a fake gun. I'm going to Y108 and I'm going to take control of the station and play all the Smiths and the Morrissey tapes over the air. (As I re-read what I've wrote it sounds crazy to me.) When it's over I'll give myself up. I do not expect to die, but if that happens I won't really mind. I will not hurt anyone else that doesn't try to stop me. I really don't expect to be successful.

At the end most will say I'm insane. I feel I'm sane if everyone else is insane, but I'm insane if they're sane.

Again, I'm sorry for you if I cause you pain. I hope through reading my words you can see why I did this and find a way to forgive me. You're still my mother and father. I hope I'm still your son.

With love and regret,
James

"Life is hard enough when you belong here"

The second letter, dated on the day of the incident:

Dear Mom and Al,
I am ashamed for any respect you have held for me because I really didn't deserve it. It's true that lies lead to more lies and I have told so many. I have backed out again last Friday. It has happened so many times I think of reasons of why outweigh the reasons why not. My only problem is the reasons why not revolve around you two. I hate to disapoint you. I hate to leave you. I hate to hurt you. I can only hope that your pain is weak and short lived. I hope you find a way to understand and forgive. If you can't I'll understand.

I must be crazy because I look around for what purpose I could possibly have in this world and this is the only I could find. One for whom people could laugh at and wonder where I went wrong.

I could write forever and not tell you all I want. Please read the poems. Please do not blame yourselves because you have been good parents. Please forgive me and don't cry for me.

Love,
James

"There's a light and it never goes out"

I think I feel much better when it's over

Although Kiss was arrested on suspicion of attempted first degree kidnapping and extortion, the Jefferson County District Attorney at the time, Miles Madorin, reviewed the case and declined to pursue charges. "Case not prosecutable because he renounced his purpose prior to committing any act," wrote Madorin in his declination of the case. "Also insufficient evidence of a substantial step taken for any attempt. He never contacted any victim." With that, the incidental was put to rest and subsequently forgotten by everyone except for perhaps diehard Smiths fans and Morrissey, who referenced the incident in an interview with details some years later.

Next: Check back tomorrow for more on this story. Over the weekend, we caught up with Fadick and Kiss and talked to both about the incident. Fadick recounted the days events, while Kiss talked in more detail about what happened and why and how his life took a paradigm shift after this watershed moment and how story is ultimately a redemptive one.

more (http://blogs.westword.com/backbeat/2013/02/smiths_gunman_1980s_police_report.php)