Leaked audio attributed to Warren Mayor Jim Fouts compares black people to chimps
WARREN, Mich. (WJBK) - Warren Mayor Jim Fouts is once again under scrutiny after more offensive audio recordings were released by the independent journalist website Motor City Muckraker which are alleged to be of the mayor making disparaging comments about African American people and women.
The latest four recordings were obtained and released by Motor City Muckraker on Monday. In one of the recordings, a voice compares Black people to chimpanzees. In another recording, the voice ridicules a 60-year-old woman, calling her a "hag." You can listen to one of the recordings below. You can listen to the others on Motor City Muckraker. Click here to hear them all.
These recordings have not been authenticated by FOX 2.
Mayor Fouts was at a Martin Luther King Jr. Day event in Warren to introduce a diversity coordinator for the city. Just before the event was to begin, FOX 2's Amy Lange confronted Fouts. He said he would not comment on the recordings.
Later Monday afternoon, he posted on his Facebook page that "Mark Hackel and friends attempted to hijack this ceremony by releasing more vile, vitriolic, phony tapes against me. This was timed so that they came out just before our noon ceremony. This distracted from my major announcement of the appointment of Greg Murray to be the new diversity coordinator." You can read Fouts's full statement on his Facebook page here.
Below are edited transcripts from the recordings:
"You know, Blacks do look like chimpanzees. I was watching this Black woman with her daughter and they looked like two chimps. Their mouths were elongated up, duck-ish like," one of the recordings says.
"I remember this one kid in my class, I told you, some years ago he said - we were at a party store - he says my dad had rules: only two N****** at a time," another recording says.
"You think I want to date a f****** 60-year-old hag? F*** that s***. I'm not interested in any old ugly hag. I think after a certain age, they're all dried up, washed up, burned up," another recording says.
"They are p****** when they are young, and when they get older, they're just mean, hateful dried-up c****," he allegedly said.
Listen to the first recording for yourself in the embed below, courtesy of the Motor City Muckraker:
The other recordings have been deemed unfit to publish on our site. CLICK HERE to hear them on the Muckraker's site.
FOX 2 has placed a call to the mayor's office, seeking response. We have not heard back from the office.
Last month, the mayor was alleged to have been caught on tape saying disparaging things about mentally challenged people.
In those recordings, a voice says, "Tonight I am going to meet a bunch of retards. Tonight is retard night." In a second recording, a voice that sounds like Fouts says, "Fine I guess, what good are they, they are dysfunctional human beings. They are not even human beings."
Fouts has repeatedly denied saying those comments, and has said the tapes are phony and were released by Macomb County Executive Mark Hackel. Many have called for Fouts's resignation, and he was fired from his weekly radio show on 910AM.
This is a developing story. Stay with FOX 2 for updates.