Things could get interesting while working with Heid at KZZO-FM in Clovis, NM. There were a couple of times in which we had to have the police come out to the station.
One night, he went outside after his shift and locked the door. A few seconds later, he ran to the door, quickly unlocked it, ran in and locked the door again. (He had to use the same key to unlock and lock the door.) He ran into the studio and yelled, "SOMEONE JUST SHOT AT ME!"
Heid had a tendency to say some things that would make people upset. I never thought anyone would get so mad that they would want to kill him, but there were a lot of people who owned guns in Clovis.
We called the cops. They came out and took his statement. At the time, there was a pickup parked across the street. The police questioned the people in that vehicle. It was determined that they had nothing to do with the shooting. They just happened to be there when the cops arrived. One of the officers said that somebody was probably practicing with a rifle and didn't know that anyone was in the vicinity. Heid was not a target. Over time, this became apparent because no one ever tried to kill him again.
Another incident took place on Friday, April 1st, 1988. Something you need to know about our station is that we almost never played Heavy Metal music. It only stood a chance of getting on our playlist if it hit the Top 40. And really, we had a tendency to wait until it hit the Top 20 before we actually played it. And if we did, you could only hear it at night. However, Heavy Metal was the most requested genre that we received on a daily basis. A lot of the younger listeners wanted to hear it more frequently on our station.
That night, Heid started promoting a new feature called the "Heavy Metal Hour of Power." It was going to launch at 11pm. Since I was Music Director, this was a new one on me. But Heid said that Jid the owner approved it. He said he had been getting phone calls all night requesting certain songs. He would tell everyone that he was going to play the music they requested.
At the time, Heid had a couple of visitors at the station. They were both high school students. One was an Alpha Male. The other was this effeminate twerp with big ears.
At 11pm, Heid played this spectactular open to his program. After the intro was finished, Heid came on and said, "Well, I hate to tell you this, but APRIL FOOL!" He then played one of our cheesier Top 40 songs. And the phones went crazy! People were angry! Some didn't hear the announcement and said, "I thought you were going to play Heavy Metal right now!" "No, it was an April Fools joke." No one was happy, but Heid couldn't stop laughing.
About 11:10pm, there was a crashing noise coming from the back of the station. I was walking down the hallway from the Program Director's office toward the studio when I heard it. I could also hear the sound of someone laughing outside and a car driving off. All of a sudden the effeminate twerp yelled, "AAAAAH! THEY'VE GOT GUNS!" I thought for certain he was actually seeing people with guns. I immediately ran back into the Program Director's office. There was a rear exit there. I was about to go outside when I suddenly realized I needed to call 911. My plan was to report it, run outside and hide in the field next door until the cops showed up.
While I waited for the dispatcher to pick up, I could hear someone shouting, "STAY THE F*** DOWN! EVERYBODY JUST STAY THE F*** DOWN!" I envisioned somebody holding a gun to Heid's head, forcing him to play Ozzy Osbourne.
The dispatcher got on the phone. I tried to give her the information as calmly as possible, including the possibility that this was a hostage situation. I got ready to head out the door. The dispatcher told me I needed to stay on the line. I told her I didn't want to stay on the line, I wanted to get out before someone shot me. She said she needed more information, like a description of the suspect car. I groaned and went outside where I couldn't be seen from the lobby. I saw a car I wasn't familiar with and quickly memorized the license plate number. I came back in and gave that to the dispatcher.
Again, I got ready to run outside. Suddenly, I heard Heid yell, "Fayd! It's okay to come out! The cops are here!" I asked Heid what happened to the guys who broke in. "Nobody came inside the station." "Well, who was shouting for everyone to stay down?" "Oh, that was me yelling at the other two." "Well, whose car is out there that I gave out the license plate number to?" Heid slapped his forehead. "That's MY car! You gave the cops MY license plate number!"
The police went into the sales office. The window to the back door had been broken. On the ground, we found a big rock. On the rock was a piece of masking tape that had "HEAVY METAL" written with a Magic Marker. (Oh, I get it! It's a "Hard Rock!") One of the cops asked, "Do you think we ought to dust that for fingerprints!" Another said, "Yeah, like we can get fingerprints off of a rock."
It looked like someone just drove up to the back door, threw the rock through the window and drove off. The police never did find out who did it. We were just lucky they broke a small window in a door and not one of the larger windows in the main lobby.
I didn't realize at the time, but I did not need to stay on the phone with the dispatcher. And really, she had no right to keep me on the phone after I made the report. I mean, if there had actually been gunmen in the station and one of them found me, it would have been her fault if I had gotten shot. I always feared that the Clovis Police Department played a tape of my 911 call at their Christmas party that year along with the other dodo calls they received.
But the thing that really gets me is that if it wasn't for that effeminate twerp, we never would have suspected anyone had guns. Heid and I would have just gone back to the sales office to find the broken window and the rock. We still would have called the cops, but no one would have been in a panicked state about it. I almost feel like a better scenario would have been to see a severed arm instead of a rock and having J. Walter Weatherman show up to say, "And that's why you don't let visitors in the station at night!"
I didn't care much for April Fools after that.
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