Windows broken at KSLM, Salem’s conservative talk radio station

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Ian Carlson was working a graveyard shift early Saturday morning at KLSM, a conservative news talk radio station in northeast Salem, when he saw three windows shattered one by one.

The glass came flying in with such force that it sent shards 30 feet down the station’s hallway, according to Carlson, a broadcast engineer.

At first, he said he feared it might be police responding to a swatting call. He shouted at whoever was behind the glass, but no one responded or came through the window. 

“It was absolutely terrifying, and I think it was intended to terrify,” Carlson said.

He reported the damage around 1:45 a.m. on Saturday. 

No one was injured and officers found no evidence that anyone had tried to enter the building. It was unclear what caused the damage, according to Salem Police Department spokeswoman Angela Hedrick.

Police did not find a suspect and are still investigating the incident, Hedrick said.

The radio station sits at the back of a parking lot shared with several other businesses. 

“From our perspective, it wasn’t vandalism. It was a targeted attack,” said Jaci Smith, KSLM’s general manager.

When the windows were broken at KSLM, Carlson said he ran out the back door to a parking lot to lock himself in his car, but he realized he’d forgotten his keys. He walked in a circle around the building and didn’t find anyone before calling the station’s owners and police.

Carlson said the station did not have security cameras at the time, but they’re now considering installing them to gather evidence in case of any future attacks. Neighboring businesses in the parking lot do have cameras.

He said the window damage appeared to be from a baseball bat or a club.

Staff removed what was left of the glass and boarded up the windows. 

“It’s difficult for me to spend any time in there,” Carlson said. “It’s been very tense at the station ever since, and I’ve been very concerned about the safety of the people that are there.”

He said he’s been concerned about safety at the station since he moved to Salem in November due to “constant protests that decry the administration.”

The incident comes just days after a Salem man was charged with throwing a Molotov cocktail through a window at Salem’s Tesla dealership and on another occasion shooting at its windows. Tesla dealerships across the U.S. have been the targets of political protest and vandalism due to Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s role in President Donald Trump’s administration. 

The radio station is a family business, but Smith said that it frequently reinvests its profit into the community by helping dozens of nonprofits.

“Politics in general are divisive, but we have worked really, really hard in trying to bridge that gap,” she said.

Contact reporter Ardeshir Tabrizian: [email protected] or 503-929-3053.

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