Swan River radio station struck by arson; owner believes it’s due to Facebook post

Mounties are searching for a suspect seen outside a Swan River radio station, shortly before the building was firebombed early Thursday.

Police in the town some 375 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg responded to reports of a fire at a business on the 500 block of Main Street around 5:20 a.m., Manitoba RCMP said in a news release Friday.

Officers encountered heavy smoke and the building’s interior was significantly damaged, police said. “With assistance of a fire investigator, the preliminary investigation has determined the cause of the fire to be incendiary.”

Investigators recovered video surveillance from nearby cameras that shows an unknown man riding a bike past the business right before the fire broke out.

Bill Gade, owner of CJ104, who is also reeve of the RM of Swan Valley West, said “pretty much all of (the station) is destroyed.”

Gade said the first employee usually starts work at 5 a.m., but the substitute worker scheduled for Thursday was coming in late.

“There just would have been no way out, and if they got out, they would have been burning. They would have been covered in burning gas. There’s just nothing they could have done,” he said.

“I’ve seen the videos, the entire room splashed with burning gas.”

Gade said he believes the attack is linked to a Facebook post made by the station last week, which received backlash from the community.

The post was about a 29-year-old who died in a car crash on Canada Day, and it included his criminal history. The man was in a vehicle travelling southbound on Highway 10 that hit another vehicle, whose two occupants died. They were identified as Royal Canoe bassist Brendan Berg and his partner, Olivia Michalczuk.

A large portion of the more than 400 comments on the post were critical it had mentioned the man’s extensive history with the justice system.

Gade defended the post, by saying that how news is covered; that if Bill Cosby died, news outlets wouldn’t just report on his acting fame, they would also mention his criminal history.

He said he never thought he’d be attacked over a social media post.

“It’s absolutely horrible,” he said. “There’s just no words to describe how bad it is.”

RCMP media relations officer Sgt. Paul Manaigre said it’s too early to comment on the motive for the fire attack, and police are still investigating.

“This particular incident itself is a little bit unique as far as the cause of the fire, it’s not a common occurrence, really anywhere in Manitoba,” he said.

Gade said the studio is where the Mark and Bill morning show is produced each weekday and aired on stations in Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

The studio and master control facilities for stations in Neepawa, Gimli, Virden and Esterhazy, Sask., were ruined.

“Lots of it is melted. But the stuff that isn’t melted, we’re trying to at least get some of it to turn on so we can get some signals on some of these stations, because right now, the whole network is off.”

Computer servers for Parkland Tourism, the Swan Valley Chamber of Commerce and non-profit groups were also destroyed.

Gade said he hopes the stations will be back on air by the end of the weekend. The business always carries replacement equipment for one station, because lightning can hit a transmitter at any time.

— with files from the Brandon Sun

fpcity@freepress.mb.ca