An Open Letter To The Deadbeat Who Smashed the LITE-FM Windshield

Saturday morning, we were so excited to pack up the van and head to Albertsons to surprise customers with free groceries to add to their Father's Day, graduation and birthday celebrations. Unfortunately, that excitement was short lived.

When we showed up at the station, we found that sometime between when we came back from surprising Sharyn at Johnson and Lundgreen with her LITE-FM Employee of the Week on Friday afternoon and leaving for Albertsons, some deadbeat had thrown a rock at the windshield of our van, absolutely shattering it. The incident happened in our own parking lot.

When Jaci sent me the picture of the windshield, my heart broke into just as many pieces. To whoever did this, why?! What has gone so terribly wrong in your life that you felt like you had to take out your aggression on our windshield? Don't you know that there is a safe and legal place where you can go smash a windshield without ruining someone's day or property?

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Do you feel big smashing the windshield of a vehicle that brought joy to over 70 drive-by parades for everything from birthdays to graduations to cancer remission to wedding anniversaries during the darkest year in human history?

Did you stumble out of the river drunk, thinking this was funny? Or are you a misguided teen trying to squeeze their way into the "cool kids" clique? Well, you're not funny. You're not cool. You're an embarrassment to our community.

Seriously. When I moved to Boise a decade ago, people tried to sell me (and my dad) on how safe it was to live here. "No one locks their doors." We heard it over and over again. I think that certainly made my dad feel more at ease about his oldest child moving across the country to a city where she didn't know anyone.

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For a long time, Boise really was that safe and it really was that kind, but this windshield incident just furthered some icky feelings I've had lately. This isn't the Boise I moved to 11 years ago. I've been the victim of more crime in Boise than I ever was in my hometown (which routinely ends up on lists like "most dangerous cities in America.) I've had my car broken into twice and my wallet stolen. One of our sister stations had their vehicle vandalized in Nampa just a few days before our windshield got broken.

While Boise's still considerably safer than many other cities in the Pacific Northwest, I still feel like something's changed recently and it makes me sad. I don't feel like I can genuinely sell "safety" to any future candidates we interview for our team.

We took pictures of the damage, the rock that caused the damage and are going through the proper channels to see if we can find the person who did this. If we never come face to face, but connect on the inter-webs, I just want you to know you're a deadbeat.