Steve Anderson arrested
"Colonel" Steve Anderson, a man on the run since shooting up a deputy's cruiser last fall, was finally captured on Friday, according to multiple press reports.
Anderson, a militia/KKK/consiracy theory/anti-government nut, ran a pirate shortwave operation on 6900 and other frequencies in the 3MHz band much of last year, right up to October 15, when he went nuts on the deputy after allegedly being pulled over because of a broken tail light on his pickup truck. The ATF had posted a reward for information leading to his capture, and the reward was bumped up to $20,000 after Anderson was profiled on America's Most Wanted earlier this year.
Anderson's pirate broadcasts had gotten progressively weirder after the terrorist attacks. We last logged him here on October 3 and October 11, 2001, and just a few days later, Glenn Hauser announced that he'd flipped out.
Steve Anderson also inspired a unique, though short-lived, sub-genre in the shortwave pirate world. Stations like United Patriot Militia Bingo humorously and mercilessly parodied Anderson, and continued for some time after he became a fugitive. Our personal favorite Anderson parody is Anderson On The Run:
One of these days I'm going to digitize the first Anderson profile aired on America's Most Wanted. There are a lot of entertaining and chilling snippets from his pirate broadcasts in that short feature. We won't see such an saga on the airwaves anytime soon again.