Chali Pittman
“I remember hearing that sound so clearly: ‘Ping, ping, ping,’” Rebecca Barber says the of the gunshots fired at her.
Eugene Crisler’EL didn’t have time to think. He just saw a man pointing a pistol at him and his friends.
“I yelled ‘Go, go.’ My body just took over,” says Crisler’EL, who had just finished helping with the radio show Universal Soul Explosion at WORT 89.9 FM.
Around 3 a.m. Sunday, a masked man entered the community radio station and began shooting at Crisler’EL (aka Brother Eugene), host, Rebecca Barber (DJ Boss Lady), and DJ Odalo, who was about to start his own show.
“I was pushing into Boss Lady to move but it didn’t really register with her until the third shot — the one that hit me,” Crisler’EL says. “Odalo was closest to the door of the [master control] room and we all rushed in there.”
Although she didn’t comprehend what was happening at first, Barber knew she was in danger. “It was the kind of thing where your brain is just telling you to move and you just do it without even knowing where you are going,” says Barber.
Crisler’EL was the only one hit by a bullet — he was treated at a local hospital for a wound in his right buttock and released — in the Aug. 5 incident. But for a few minutes, terror reigned at the station.
The gunman fired several shots at the three volunteer DJs as they scurried to find safety. Barber says it was dark in the control room and someone tripped and they all ended up on the floor in a pile. At nearly the same moment, glass shards hit them as a bullet pierced a double-pane window between the studio and the control room.
“I remember hearing that sound so clearly: ‘Ping, ping, ping,’” Barber says. “The shots didn’t make a loud bang because there was a silencer [on the gun].”
Crisler’EL says the gunfire stopped after the bullet hit the window.
“He must have thought when he hit that window and when we fell, that he got one of us. We were all in the direction of those bullets. And if we hadn’t run, we would have all gotten hit,” says Crisler’EL. “After that, I put my arm around Boss Lady to cover her. We bear-crawled on the ground into the [vinyl room]. She saw the phone and grabbed it. Gave it to me and I called 911.”
The shooting drew national attention, with early reports wondering if the incident was an attack on the media. The Madison Police Department’s violent crime unit is still investigating, but does not believe the shooting was a “random act of violence committed against media.”
The DJs waited in the vinyl library until police arrived. None of them recognized the shooter, whose face was concealed, or heard him say anything during the incident. “Indications are this is a targeted act against specific person(s),” Officer Howard Payne wrote in the police incident report. “We understand and appreciate the interest in this case beyond the local level but do not believe it has any relation to the current national dialogue on media.”
So why did this happen?
That question weighs on Barber. “It was completely unexpected. Nobody knows how he got in. I don’t what the motive was. Who they were after. There’s no closure. I don’t know if this is over yet,” says Barber. “It’s hard to carry. It’s hard to know who to trust. I’m uneasy. But not afraid.”
There was no sign of forced entry. The station recently bought security cameras for its entrances, but they weren’t yet set up to record footage.
Sybil Augustine, the station’s music director, says they have given police a few possible leads but she doesn’t want to speculate publicly about suspects or motives.
“We just don’t know at this point. Police told me they are looking at cameras in the area that may have seen who did this,” Augustine says. “There are no plans to change programming because of this. I do worry about having more difficulty finding people to work these overnight shifts, though.”
WORT held a meeting Tuesday night to discuss what security measures volunteers would like to see implemented because of the shooting. The door codes that allow volunteers to enter the station after business hours have been changed. The station is considering installing more cameras and key fobs in order to track who comes in and out of the building.
Barber and Crisler’EL will be back behind the mics Sunday morning at midnight, the start time of the Universal Soul Explosion. The show was launched in the 1970s and was the first hip hop show in Madison. It’s popular among people who are incarcerated and their friends and families, who call in messages to loved ones.
Crisler’EL says his bullet wound is healing but the mental toll lingers.
“I’m not going to let this change what I’m doing. What I do at WORT is uplift people and give people a message they need to hear. To put people at ease even if they are in a cell block,” says Crisler’EL. “I’m also there to assist Boss Lady do what she does and this isn’t going to stop her.”
“We have a lot of supporters,” Barber says. “People know what we do in terms of connecting individuals. We need to talk about this. Someone coming up and shooting at you is daily life for some people. How can I be an advocate for change if I walk away?”
