WLS Channel 7 - News - "Armed Gunman Inside Channel 7 Building" (Part 1, 1990)

Here's Part 1 of WLS Channel 7's news coverage of an armed robbery suspect who hid out for 40 hours at the 190 North State Street building that houses the station.

This part comes in while in progress, and starts with Dick Johnson and Sylvia Perez atop the Sears Tower which houses WLS's transmitter. They cut to Chuck Goudie outside the building; his microphone comes in and out at the outset. He gives information on the suspect: John Fidel Andre Kane, 28, who worked at one point as a security guard despite being a convicted felon with a record of thefts, and has had a cocaine problem. It began on Saturday, August 25th with an armed robbery of a pizza shop on the Near North Side (Lou Malnati's Pizza Restaurant at 439 N. Wells) at 9:45am. At the time of this broadcast, WLS officials and police searched hither and yon throughout the entire building for the suspect, to no avail. Chuck explains police theories about how the suspect entered the Channel 7 building, and that he had $6,200 in cash stolen from the pizzeria and a .38-caliber revolver.

Chuck then speaks with Channel 7 President and General Manager Joe Ahern who just emerged from the building lobby. Ahern explains the latest search for the suspect took three hours and 225,000 square feet, searching through every aspect of the building. He says the suspect had a confrontation with the station's maintenance engineer on the 12th floor, and that the suspect may have used one of the exits, egresses, etc. He believes the suspect's not inside the building at this time. He mentioned that WLS was off the air from 9:58:30pm to about 10:25pm as they were trying to establish a signal. He thanks Superintendent Martin and others in the First District for their help.

Chuck then recaps the situation as it stands as of the time of this broadcast.

Then they go back to Dick and Sylvia (after a brief shot of the SMPTE color bars). Dick mentioned that of the six confrontations the suspect had with various WLS employees, none of them were violent, and with one of the employees the suspect was polite, saying he didn't want any trouble. They then say good night as the station signs off abruptly, cutting right away to EIA RS-189A color bars with station ID printed in the middle (apparently, by then the famous circular "Sears Tower / Circular Polarization" color test pattern had been retired) and seven different tones played in a loop from higher to lower frequencies, before the carrier is cut and replaced briefly with a rolling program schedule from Prevue TV, after which the WLS color bars return briefly before the tape ends.

[NOTE: The tones heard over the color bars are, in order: 6,600 Hz, 5,120 Hz, 4,075 Hz, 2,586 Hz, 982 Hz, 416 Hz, and 186 Hz (the higher frequencies approximate).]

This aired on local Chicago TV early Sunday, August 26th 1990 during the 1:42 to 1:52am timeframe.

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