Radio Host’s Death Linked to Equipment Dispute

As grass-roots revolutionaries go, Michael Taylor was about action more than talk.

When it came time to organize rallies in support of imprisoned Philadelphia journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal, sentenced to death for killing a police officer, Taylor led the charge. When someone was needed to appear on a panel about Los Angeles’ lethargic community activism, he was the first to volunteer.

On one of the radio shows he hosted at community-sponsored station KPFK-FM, Taylor described why he had dedicated his life to helping others in and outside the African American community.

“I definitely don’t want to be considered as a liberal,” Taylor said during a broadcast. “I don’t want to be considered as someone to the left. I am a freedom fighter. I’m fighting for my own freedom in this country. I’m fighting for the freedom of my people and other oppressed people.

“I want to use the alternative airwaves as a tool to bring out not only my ideas, but other people’s ideas from my community and other communities. I want to talk about what they face and hopefully come up with solutions to make things better.”

But last month, the 45-year-old Taylor was found shot to death execution-style in a filthy vacant lot in South Los Angeles. Now friends as well as authorities are wondering whether Taylor’s dream of starting a low-frequency “micro-station” in the Baldwin Hills area got him killed because of a dispute over radio equipment essential to his plan.

Three suspects have been arrested in connection with the slaying, but police say there may be others involved. Three of Taylor’s friends who worked with him on the proposed station are in hiding, saying they fear for their lives.

“The whole thing is pretty scary for his friends who were directly involved with starting the station,” said Karen Palmer, who met Taylor while working at rallies on behalf of Mumia Abu-Jamal. “I would fear for my life too.”

“I don’t think Michael was careful about the people he associated with,” said Ron Wilkins, a friend and former host at Studio City-based KPFK. “That was a weakness. I told him he shouldn’t be hanging out with these people, but I think Michael was so concerned about the welfare of other people that he overlooked his own security.”

The three men being held without bail in the slaying--Andrew Lancaster, 23, of Compton, and Shawn Alexander, 19, and Jornay Rechurnd, 20, both of Los Angeles--have been charged with murder and kidnapping. Special circumstances attached to the murder charges would make them eligible for the death penalty.

Initially, some colleagues thought Taylor was killed because of his outspoken views about everything from local black politicians to the Los Angeles Police Department.

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Police so far have declined to spell out what each man did on the day of the killings. But they believe that on April 21, two of the men came to the door of the eclectic, communal Hollywood home Taylor shared with four roommates.

While the third suspect waited in a car, the other two demanded that Taylor leave with them. Police speculate that Taylor, who previously worked part time at a homeless shelter, sensed the danger in the situation but feared more for the safety of his roommates. He quickly left with the men and was never seen again.

“[The suspects] were looking for equipment,” said Det. Steve Watson of the LAPD’s South Bureau. “That’s definitely what the issue was. Basically there was some equipment, some sort of transmitter, they wanted to get.”

One of Taylor’s technical partners in “Los Angeles Liberation Radio,” Bob Martson, said that after three months of working on the project, Taylor began feeling uneasy about how it was developing and decided to back out. However, the financiers behind the station decided to go on without Taylor but realized they needed an important transmitter in his possession, Watson said.

“Michael told me he had received a phone call from the guys saying that things were going to get rough if the rest of the equipment isn’t turned over,” said a friend who talked to Taylor on the last day he was seen alive. “If anything happened to him, he told me where to look. I asked him if someone was going to kill him, and he said it was possible.”

The friend said Taylor had not been sleeping well for about 10 days. But Taylor thought he was safe at his Hollywood residence. “I don’t think Michael thought anybody would come to his home,” the friend said.

Until late last year, Taylor had thrived at KPFK since 1992. A guest on his “Community Forum” show made a statement about former Mayor Tom Bradley that station officials thought was offensive. After the incident, relations were tense--station officials wanted to listen to all of Taylor’s shows before they were aired.

Taylor, a volunteer, hosted a show that was a mix of interviews and commentary by himself and others. Like other shows on the community-sponsored station, it aired on an occasional basis.

Apparently angered by the station’s new dictate, Taylor became determined to start his own station. He began reaching out to community newspapers and groups in South Los Angeles to support his effort with donations, commercials or simply volunteer work.

Stephen Dunifer, a leading California expert on micro-stations, met Taylor at a radio conference last year in San Jose. During a break from his popular “Free Radio Berkeley” show in the Bay Area, Dunifer remembered that he and Taylor agreed on the importance of establishing such small stations, which are more like neighborhood information centers that can be heard over a 20-mile radius.

Micro-stations, which can be set up virtually anywhere, essentially are bootleg operations, broadcasting on open radio frequencies without permission of the Federal Communications Commission. The financing arrangements vary, with some stations surviving on donations, others selling time for advertising to pay the bills.

“The FCC tries to say we are pirates, but we feel we are engaged in legally Constitution-protected activity,” Dunifer said. “We are just trying to provide a voice for people.”

Dunifer and other underground radio programmers in the Bay Area have been engaged in a three-year legal battle with the FCC over access to the airwaves. On an earlier show, Taylor supported Dunifer’s cause, saying that even community radio wasn’t reaching out to the disenfranchised. Indeed, the FCC has recognized the need for diverse viewpoints, but says it cannot condone micro-stations snatching the airwaves without permits.

Close friends and fellow radio advocates are doubly saddened that Taylor was cut down just as his dream was gaining steam. They say the story of his quest for a free and community-based station mirrored the passion and determination of his own life.

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Though his friends didn’t know much about his childhood in Tulsa, Okla., they said he had gotten over a drug habit and moved from bleak skid row into his own apartment a few years ago.

In spite of his financial instability, Taylor tried to support those in his circle. Last year, he took in his daughter and her three children into his small apartment.

The micro-station, friends say, was an example of Taylor’s dogged pursuit of new goals and his desire for a better life.