Comments about wanting to beat and shoot someone are something law enforcers take seriously.
So that's how Michigan State Police investigators handle recordings of two phone rants by Warren Mayor Jim Fouts about an ex-employee, as Norb Franz describes in The Macomb Daily.
Mayor Jim Fouts of WarrenIn a profanity-filled tirade being investigated by Michigan State Police, Warren Mayor James Fouts blasts two former employees, complaining about litigation and his online profile.
In a recorded telephone conversation between the mayor and an appointee — a copy of which was obtained by The Macomb Daily — Fouts said of one of the former workers: “If I had a baseball bat, I’d beat the fucker down to the fucking ground. I mean, it would take me just a little bit to get a fucking gun and blow his fucking head out. That’s how pissed off I am.” . . .
“Well one of these days I’m just going to flip out, and I’m going to go over there and I’m going to take a 2-by-4 and beat the hell out of them. I may end up in jail. But I’m getting angrier and angrier,” he said. [The paper omits the full profanities from its published text, but posts them in an audio file.]
Franz quotes Lt. Michael Shaw as saying State Police detectives are looking into whether Fouts illegally used a phone to make a threat.
The second-term mayor insisted he broke no laws and is eager to talk to State Police detectives.
Taped calls are "a gross violation of confidentiality of trust I have with political appointees,” the mayor told the reporter.
