WIND

A radio station in Gary, Ind. boomed out one night last week: "Here we are, folks, right on the scene of a gigantic man hunt. The troops are tramping through the field on the trail of the convicts. Listen closely, folks, listen to that deadly patter of lead." Bang! Bang! Bang!

Excited Hoosiers who knew that ten long-term convicts had escaped day before from Indiana Penitentiary and kidnapped a sheriff, congratulated themselves on having tuned in on the capture. Many a policeman's wife telephoned headquarters to learn if her husband had been wounded. The sheriff of nearby Cook County. III. doubled his highway patrol. Indiana's Governor McNutt telephoned to learn what was happening. He was told that the whole thing was a fake.

But it was not entirely a fake. The managers of Columbia Broadcasting's Station WIND, knowing that police were searching a wooded section near Chesterton for the escaped desperadoes, had taken a microphone to the scene and were broadcasting what they could get. Captain Matt Leach of the Indiana State Troopers spoiled the fun. He arrested the broadcasters and to the Federal Radio Commission dispatched an irate complaint:

"This broadcast seriously interfered with the work of 65 State police. No shots have been fired by any authorized officer searching for the ten prisoners. . . We wasted several hours ... in determining there was no truth to substantiate the broadcast and in making an inquiry into the hoax. ... I desire the Federal Radio Commission to make a complete investigation. . . ." A day later he withdrew his protest, "pending further investigation."

Meanwhile Columbia Broadcasting System was making its own inquiry. First thing it did was to discharge WIND's program manager. But it insisted that the broadcast had been made with the approval and assistance of the authorities. "Intensive investigation which is not yet complete indicates that this broadcast, far from being a hoax, was substantially correct," said the company. "The investigation does show, however, that a responsible and experienced Columbia man . . . did connive at increasing the number of shots, although there were shots of spontaneous origin. We are satisfied that when Capt.Leach has completed his investigation he will find that our own determination of the facts has been accurate." Said President Ralph Atlass of Station WIND: "Our men relayed information regularly received from the State police. ... All the shooting had been done by police, who fired into the woods with the purpose of hitting or frightening from cover the escaped felons."

Logan A. ("Steve") Trumbull, the dismissed program manager, declared that the shots were fired by officers in enthusiasm over the broadcast. "We never once announced that a battle was being fought," he said. "We first had Mrs. Thelma Gustaffson talk into the microphone on how some of the escaped convicts stopped at her home to ask directions. . . . There were police cars going up & down the highway with sirens sounding all the time. Some of the officers wanted to fire their guns to give the broadcast atmosphere, but I told them not to.

"A young farmer had been hanging around all day with a gun just itching for a chance to do some shooting. Well, he cut loose and began firing. I had covered up for the officers, but since I'm getting heck for it I may as well tell the rest of it. ... Three of them heard part of the broadcast and the shots while they were in a speakeasy and they came over. They joined in the shooting and gave us entirely too much atmosphere."

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