Arson, Cable Damage Knock NPR Stations in Arkansas, Texas Off Air

An arson at a National Public Radio affiliate in Arkansas and possible transmission wire tampering at a station in Texas were being investigated as separate incidents on April 4, but authorities said they would work to determine if the two were connected.

Engineers at KTXK in Texarkana, Texas, found holes in a transmission cable April 1. A fire damaged KUAR’s transmitter at Little Rock, Ark., the next day. Police said someone had changed the station’s lock and fire officials later told the station the blaze was intentionally set.

Arkansas State Police spokesman Bill Sadler said local agencies will investigate separately unless they receive evidence connecting the cases. Grover Crossland, an agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms in Little Rock, said the agency also would collaborate with officers in Texarkana.

NPR has come under increased scrutiny since activists caught an executive on camera deriding the tea party movement and saying NPR would be better off without federal funding. The executive and the NPR president resigned after the incident. The House has pushed an effort to end federal funding to NPR, but denied the measure was a vendetta. Democratic opponents called the move an ideological attack.

Officials with the Arkansas and Texas stations said they doubt the incidents there were part of a deliberate attack against NPR.

“I don’t have any reason to believe that anyone wanted to take us out,” said KTKK general manager Steve Mitchell, where a transmission wire problem was found 300 feet above the ground. “Whatever this is, I don’t think it’s malicious.”

KUAR general manager Ben Fry said he also doubts ideological motives were behind the trouble at his station in Little Rock.

“I don’t have any evidence to indicate that, and we haven’t received any threats,” Fry said.

Crews in Texarkana found a hole about the size of a pencil in KTXK’s transmission cable Friday. Todd Warren, executive director of public safety and police services at Texarkana College, said it’s too early to determine what caused the hole but that he has not ruled out vandalism.

“It’s a pretty clean hole so it could have been a bullet,” Warren said. “At that height, nobody climbed up there and punched a hole.”

Fry said KUAR first became aware of the April 2 fire after someone called in to report the Little Rock station was off the air. Fry said an engineer who headed out to inspect the tower discovered the original lock on the door had been removed and a new lock was put in its place, preventing the engineer from entering the burning building.

After fire crews extinguished the blaze, Fry said officials discovered part of the perimeter fencing had been cut and pulled back and that some copper was missing. KUAR reported April 4 that ATF agents informed the station a trained dog had sniffed out an accelerant. A message seeking additional comment was left for the ATF by The Associated Press after business hours.

KUAR’s transmission tower is located on a mountain with several other radio towers, and Fry said there are no outside markings to indicate who owns each tower other than a number on the antenna structure.

“If someone were to single us out, they would have to do some research,” he said.

Both stations were broadcasting online April 4.

“We are operating at about a tenth of what our normal power would be,” Fry said, adding that full repairs to the Little Rick station will cost around $200,000.

Mitchell said he hopes the Texarkana station can start repairs, which he expects to cost close to $40,000, during the weekend.