BAKERSFIELD, Calif.(KBAK\/KBFX) \u2014 Employees arriving at Life FM around 9 a.m. Monday found the Christian radio station\u2019s glass front door shattered, apparently by a rock thrown through it.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou could tell something had been smashed, either thrown through or hit the door. And so yeah, after opening it up and finding the glass, found a rock that had been thrown through,\u201d said Matt Pelishek, the station\u2019s program director.<\/p>\n
Pelishek said staff checked the building to make sure nothing was taken or damaged inside. The station contacted Bakersfield police and the Kern County Sheriff\u2019s Office. At the time of the interview, authorities had not yet arrived to complete a report, and the motive remained unknown.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt brings questions,\u201d Pelishek said. \u201cIs this a one off\u201d \u201cor is it connected to something else?\u201d<\/p>\n
The vandalism comes amid recent violence involving local media. Life FM employee and Eyewitness News morning forecaster and anchor Aaron Perlman said Bakersfield police told him he may have been the intended target of the shooting at the KBAK\/KBFX studio this month. Bakersfield police have not confirmed any connection between the two cases.<\/p>\n
After Life FM posted a photo of the damage, Pelishek said community members quickly reached out with messages of support.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo many people were like, oh, I can\u2019t believe it. Oh, we love you guys. Why would they do?\u201d Pelishek said.<\/p>\n
The incident also comes as other vandalism has been reported in recent months, including air conditioning unit vandalism and theft, spray painting on a metal roll-up door at the GET bus terminal, and a metal pipe thrown through a vehicle\u2019s rear windshield. A request for comment was sent to Bakersfield police to ask whether vandalism trends have changed in recent months, but no response had been received.<\/p>\n
Pelishek said Life FM has dealt with minor exterior damage before, sometimes involving people coming and going in the area, but said this incident was different.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut not this direct of an impact, not this intentional of an act,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Pelishek said the station plans to review surveillance footage, complete repairs, consider additional security measures and continue its mission.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be able to still step into the studio, play the songs that remind them that they\u2019re loved, remind people that we\u2019re in a community that supports each other, that I think gives us excitement to keep going,\u201d Pelishek said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BAKERSFIELD, Calif.(KBAK\/KBFX) \u2014 Employees arriving at Life FM around 9 a.m. Monday found the Christian radio station\u2019s glass…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":509311,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[151,153,152],"class_list":["post-509310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield-headlines","tag-bakersfield-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=509310"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509310\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/509311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=509310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=509310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=509310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}