According to several reports, more than two dozen Federal Marshals (armed with a battering ram) and “several” FCC agents hit San Francisco Liberation Radio‘s studios around midday today. They had arrest warrants for the equipment; over the course of several hours the entire station was cleaned out (a more accurate term might be ransacked). Everyone at the station is physically okay.
So much for community support: even though the city of San Francisco has endorsed SFLR, the feds flexed their muscles today. It’s unclear whether local law enforcement agencies participated in the raid (the city’s resolution in support of the station urges local non-cooperation).
Freak Radio Santa Cruz is on heightened alert for an FCC incursion, as it shares similar circumstances (a long history and strong community support). Freak Radio got someone from SFLR on the line and aired an on-scene report.
The raiding party assembled to take down SFLR has to be one of the largest mustered in several years. The last time the FCC and their cop-like brethren assembled battering ram-levels of manpower for a raid on a high-profile microradio station was on “Black Wednesday” – November 19, 1997, when three outspoken microradio stations in Florida had up-close encounters with SWAT teams.
The only amusing moment of an otherwise serious situation occurred at the beginning of the raid; SFLR’s studio is in the basement of an apartment house but the FCC/Marshal swarm went into the second-floor apartment first, which is apparently “completely unconnected” to the station. Smooth move, stormtroopers!
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