‘Let’s Make Them Pay’: 500-Foot Radio Tower Taken Down by Copper Thieves in Hugo

HUGO, Okla. (KOKH) — A 500-foot radio tower taken down by thieves in Hugo. The Choctaw County Sheriff says there’s a half a million dollars worth of damage.

Will Payne says whoever did this stole copper, and cut the wires holding the tower up. He’s still trying to process what happened.

“Difficult morning this morning,” Payne said. “To deal with what has happened that we never thought would happen.”

Catastrophic damage done to Payne’s radio tower Tuesday, January 16.

“Disbelief. We’ve had weather. We’ve had snow. We’ve had tornadoes.  But we’ve never had someone come in, and actually cut down a tower before.”

Thieves stole copper from the structure.

“We’re hunting down somebody that brought down a tower in order to get a little hundred dollar fix of copper. Seriously that’s about all it’s going to be worth to them. Let’s make them pay.”

Choctaw county deputies are investigating the incident.

Sheriff Terry Park talked about it online, saying the following:

At approximately 545 hours this morning CCSO deputy John Redman Choate responded to a tower being down south of Grant on the eastside of 271 northbound scalehouse. The tower was property of 95.5. It appears at the moment suspects were stealing copper and cut the wires holding the tower up, bringing the tower to the ground. Loss of copper a few hundred dollars, damage to the tower and building approximately 500,000.00. Will update as it gets more daylight. Not complaining about our new ADA cause he is doing his job well. We’ve got to go back to sending all these crackheads to prison for a long long time. Bury these worthless thieves in prison. Please call the Choctaw County Sheriff’s Office with any information. 580-326-5600 or 580-326-2130.

The situation has Payne feeling on edge.

“We’re going be watching the area nonstop,” Payne said. “That’s one thing we’ve always known: they come back over and over and over. Most likely they’ll be back tonight, tomorrow and the next night. So, we’ll just have to be waiting.”

For now, he encourages the public to be on the lookout for three-inch copper pipes on the back of a truck.

“Most likely it’s not supposed to be there, so be on the lookout. Be aware of that. And then copper recycling companies. We need to hold them to make sure that they know this stuff is coming in, and it shouldn’t be.”

K95.5 is now off the air, as the station works to recover from this crime. It’s something Payne would like to confront the vandals about.

“You’ve robbed the community of a voice. You’ve robbed the community of a way to communicate very vital information, especially this time when it’s so incredibly cold.”

K95.5 still has an online stream running, and Payne Media Group plans to continue educating the public through its other stations.