Has Mayor Jim Fouts of Warren, Michigan Threatened to Murder Ex-Employees?

 

Mayor Jim Fouts of Warren, Michigan


Posted by Nicholas Stix

A tip ‘o the hate to Thinking Americanist.

* * *Fouts Spouts: Warren Mayor's Phone Tirade Spurs State Police Inquiry
April 27th, 2013, 8:40 a.m.
Deadline Detroit

Comments about wanting to beat and shoot someone are something law enforcers take seriously.

So that's  how Michigan State Police investigators hande [sic] recordings of two phone rants by Warren Mayor Jim Fouts about an ex-employee, as Norb Franz describes in The Macomb Daily.   

In 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 fuckinbg 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.

Read more:  The Macomb Daily