WARREN, Mich. – The fallout from the secret recordings which experts say is Warren Mayor Jim Fouts making horrible remarks about the cognitively impaired is ramping up.
The story has gone national and the Michigan Democratic Party says any elected official who uses that kind of language is unfit for office.
Only Local 4 has heard the entirety of the 7 minute tape in its unedited form.
The employee who recorded it confirms he was in Mayor Fouts office and Fouts was speaking to him; upset about having to attend an event at General Motors which was a prelude to the Special Olympics.
Throughout the 7 minutes which voice experts say is Fouts he repeatedly uses slurs about the disabled and says they belong in cages and should be "Kevorkianed".
The former employee who recorded this tells us he doesn't want to go public because he fears retribution from Fouts. However, other former employees are starting to go public with what they say they've seen and heard out of Mayor Fouts.
"We were talking about athletes doing charity work, " former TV Warren Sports Director Joe Cochran told us. "And he mentioned some things about about down's syndrome which I thought were very disturbing.
He described how they are and said that they looked like aliens from another planet and I think that breaks the heart of a lot of people."
Former Fouts political consultant Joe DiSano took to social media to say he has his own recordings but also posted this: "He dropped a series of N bombs in meetings I had with him regarding the Connor creek charter school. School was to be predominately African American.
It's tough to describe but he actually stood up and did a monkey dance and mimed eating a banana."
In the middle of all of this is the Warren City Council, members have been fielding calls. "I spent the better part of today not only with Warren residents but also family with mentally disabled children and you know the stories you hear from people and the crying and the emotion behind it is just heart wrenching."