Former WBIM DJ "Threatens" Station over Punk Rock Request
Like many college radio DJs, I don’t necessarily honor the requests made by listeners. Sometimes the song suggestions don’t fit with the style of my show, other times the artists are too mainstream, but most typically I don’t have time to search the library or can’t find the selection mentioned by the caller.
An unlucky DJ at WBIM at Bridgewater State University in Bridgewater, Massachusetts was confronted with threats to “shoot up” the station after refusing to grant a particular listener’s requests to play a song by the punk rock band Rufio. According to an article in The Enterprise, “…WBIM received multiple calls from a man requesting a song they didn’t have, said program director and junior Thomas Hanley. When the man called back, he threatened to ‘come in with a gun and shoot up the place,’ according to Eva Gaffney, a spokeswoman for the university.”
Although the caller, 24-year-old former WBIM DJ Alex Finnegan, claims that his threats were “a joke,” he was arrested on Tuesday and “charged with making a threat with serious public harm, a felony, and making a threat to commit murder, a misdemeanor.” The Enterprise article notes that when he was arrested, Finnegan was wearing a WBIM T-shirt.
