The office of KSDT Radio, UC San Diego’s independent student-run radio station, was robbed on Jan. 23, between the hours of 11 p.m. and 8 a.m., according to an incident report from the UCSD Police Department. Their office is located in the Old Student Center.
The suspect, who has previously been arrested for burglary on campus, was taken into custody on Jan. 23 with no further updates. The incident is currently under investigation by the UCSD Police Department.
The suspect was seen entering and exiting the radio office on CCTV footage between 5:28 a.m. and 6:37 a.m., according to police reports.
Equipment from KSDT’s sports broadcasting division was stolen, including a pair of headphones, a RODECaster Pro, and miscellaneous wires and cables. In total, the stolen equipment is worth around $300.
Isabella Martinez, a second-year broadcasting and marketing intern at KSDT Sports, was one of the last people to leave the station the night before, around 11:30 p.m.
“The next morning, at around eight, we got a call, we got a text, and a video in our group chat on Discord, and it was a video that someone had taken to the station, and there was kind of stuff scattered around and record spread, and our equipment box was pulled out,” she described.
In September 2023, KSDT Radio expanded into the sports broadcasting scene with KSDT Sports, a subsection of the station that provides live coverage of UCSD sports games, post and pregame interviews, game highlights, sports storytelling, and more.
“I guess [KSDT Sports] is just an offshoot of KSDT, but spiritually, it is entirely different. So, knowing it was only our stuff that was touched it felt like KSTD sports was robbed,” said fourth-year Marshall Olmos, a founding member of KDST Sports and current sports broadcaster.
For Olmos, the RODECaster held sentimental value.
“The RODECaster the guy stole was the original one, the OG one that I used on [my first sports broadcast],” he said. “The emotional value [of] that RODECaster was significant. It’s a bummer that they’re not gonna find it. It’s the memories of all those games early on when [KSDT Sports] was nothing. We still have one RODECaster, but that new RODECaster was bought last February.”
Zack Mendel, a fourth year and current KSDT Sports director, maintained a positive attitude and expressed that KSDT Sports is not letting this incident hinder them.
“You know, we’re a team,” he said. “If something happens to one of us, it happens to all of us. So … it’s just another obstacle that we will overcome. … You know, it’s scary, of course, but I don’t think we can live in fear of that. … We gotta keep moving. If we let them scare us, then they win, and we don’t want them to win.”
Despite this setback, Martinez assures that supporting the station at this time is simple:“The biggest way and the easiest way to support us is by tuning into our broadcasts, which are accessible through the KSDT radio website.”
