DJ Kaos Fired

[IfasehunReincarnated]

Police comments causes chaos

By Bill Beene Of the St. Louis American
Wednesday, July 20, 2005 5:23 PM CDT


DJ Kaos

DJ Kaos and DJ Sylli Asz lived up to their names last Wednesday morning when they devoted part of their show on 100.3 The Beat (KATZ-FM) to methods of combating police officers and even suggested taking an officer's radio so he couldn't call for a backup.

This apparent attempt at humor, coming in the wake of the murder of a police officer in Kirkwood, inspired a firestorm of protest from local cops and some community members and garnered national media attention.

At press time the two deejays, who usually man the "Kaos Morning Show" from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. weekdays, were still suspended without pay by the station, which is owned by Clear Channel.

Clear Channel Market Manager Lee Clear returned a call to the American on Tuesday, but was unable to comment on the fate of the deejays per a command from corporate headquarters.

The gag order, which also extended to the two jocks, came about a week after an initial release from Clear extending his "sincere apologies for the comments made on the ‘Kaos Morning Show.'"

The release continued, "The comments were entirely inappropriate, and we have reprimanded and suspended the announcers. KATZ-FM takes pride in supporting and assisting local law enforcement whenever possible. Just last week we used our stations in asking the public to step forward with information which eventually led to the arrest of the suspect in the killing of Sgt. McEntee," the officer slain in Kirkwood.

Many police officers and their supporters lambasted the two morning deejays on the St. Louis Area Police Message Board, calling their reprimand a wrist slap - an ironic echo of typical community complaints about the punishments issued to police officers for misconduct on duty. Some of the posts on the board were virulently racist.

In an effort to get the jocks fired, many on the message board threatened to call on the station's sponsors and advertisers to discontinue their relationships with the station. They listed the names, phone numbers and email addresses of some advertisers as well as of Clear Channel's corporate offices.

Eileen Solomon, associate professor of broadcast journalism at Webster Univerity, said that the comments were inappropriate and ill-chosen, though she admitted that she only knew of the deejays' comments through other media reports. The same is true of many others angered by rumors of the show - including, no doubt, many of the police officers raising the protest.

"It seems pretty mild," Solomon said of the reprimand. "It was foolish, and they stepped into dangerous waters in the name of humor."

"Radio management needs to take a lot more care when it hires people to go on the air because in reality the buck stops with management," said Frank Absher, St. Louis radio historian and journalism instructor at Saint Louis University.

"Irresponsible people shouldn't be given an opportunity to be in a position of influence."

Absher noted similar situations in St. Louis radio, most famously when shock jocks Steve and D.C. were fired by WKBQ (104.1 FM) for using the N-word to describe their feelings about a caller.

Some black residents, however, understood at least the basis for the remarks made by the deejays.

"Black people feel a certain way about the police because of what they've seen in the news media or what happened to someone close to them or themselves," said local barber Eric Palmer.

The often adversarial and sometimes hostile relationship between police and the African-American community prompted 18th Ward Alderman Terry Kennedy to introduce a Citizens Review Board Bill because many local blacks don't trusts the police to justly police themselves.

Some regular listeners to the "Kaos Morning Show" thought it was unfair that the jocks were singled out for one incident, especially when the deejays also have mentioned the police in a positive light.

"They were just on the air Monday (two days before the incident) praising police officers for doing their jobs," said Rick Nance, president and CEO of Lexfae Cleaning.

"They were just joking around, as usual. The other day they ranked police departments by the number of stops they made, and because of those numbers, they said, the police were doing their jobs."

[DJ RBG]

Not only should one take their radio, their weapon too, then take a moment and make em good pigs $)

[IfasehunReincarnated]

Whats interesting is that this same brother dipped into his own pocket back in May and PAID a balance on the Clear Channel station's broadcasting bill because a radio executive wouldnt get out of bed early one morning. The bank was closed so he had to borrow money from a friend and wire it Western Union. (How does a guy that probably makes less than a secretary end up being responsible for getting a major market radio station back on the air because executives wont get out of bed at 6am to save hundreds of thousands of dollars in advertising money???)

He also put out a fire in the radio station two years ago that saved the building that houses 3 major STL stations.

He also is one of the last DJs to actually do live feeds in the hood.

He also answered a call to tone down radio nonsense and cut back his cursing and references to street culture over the past year.

He also is one of the most strident supporters of local St. Louis talent, putting a lot of cats music on air when most DJs mistakenly consider themselves the be the celebrities.

He is also the BIGGEST on-air personality they have. He is the single biggest DJ for listeners under 35 in ST. Louis, besides J Nicks. (whom you may have seen recently on BET hosting the Top 25 videos their Saturday show w/ Boyz in Da Hood) As of the last 3 years DJ KAOS IS YOUNG BLACK RADIO. So its nonsensical to drop him for saying what we ALL BELIEVE ANYWAY (which goes to show, even black people with money think white people's money is more important)

[Learn06]

probably plays nice music. i'm listening to Soldier Slim right now.

[Blacklove]

the two DJs who got fired for talking about the police officers around st louis city and counties

[IfasehunReincarnated]

Fired DJs didn't incite violence, lawyer says
By Todd C. Frankel
Of the Post-Dispatch
08/12/2005

What did DJ Kaos and DJ Sylli Asz really say?

The question has lingered, unanswered, for weeks, even as the two radio program hosts for the St. Louis AM station KATZ - known as 100.3 The Beat - were criticized, suspended and finally fired this month for a series of on-air comments about fighting police officers.

While the incident kick-started a widespread and at-times heated controversy, relatively few people heard the original July 13 broadcast of the "Kaos in the Morning" show.

On Friday, the Post-Dispatch listened to the entire broadcast - it was believed to be the first time that a member of the press listened to the entire show after it aired, not just excerpts.

Most of the criticism focused on an eight-minute segment, in which the deejays talked about a make-believe situation involving a confrontation between a police officer and a civilian.

Kaos asks his partner what would be the first thing he'd grab from the police officer. His radio, Sylli Asz answers. "OK. Give me some of that, give me some dap, you're a smart man. You take his backup," Kaos says.

But later in that same segment, Kaos seems to offer support to police. He asks that many officers, those who are not "punks," to "keep doing what you do. Because they are the ones who hold it down in the streets for real."

The copy was provided by DJ Kaos' attorney, Scott Sherman. He declined to say where he obtained his copy. Ads and music were cut out, reducing the five-hour morning show to about two hours, 25 minutes of the deejays talking. Radio officials said the recording format and time fit normal parameters for a morning radio show. The Post-Dispatch transcribed the recording by hand.

Until this copy surfaced, the broadcast, like most radio shows, had seemed to disappear into the ether. The station's corporate owner, Clear Channel, consistently refused to provide copies. Local clipping services did not have tape of that particular show.

Sherman said he believed the recording shows the deejays were discussing "a hypothetical, comedic situation." They did not deserve to be fired, he said.

"It's not something you say at the Rotary Club, but it is not inciting violence," Sherman said.

He added: "This was a rush to judgment."

At the time of the broadcast, tension was running high because just days earlier, on July 5, a Kirkwood police officer was fatally shot in his patrol car. The family of the alleged shooter, Kevin Johnson, 19, accused police officers, who were looking for Johnson on a probation violation, of failing to help Johnson's younger brother, who collapsed earlier that day and died from a heart defect. Ninety minutes later, Johnson allegedly shot Sgt. William McEntee.

Complaints about the deejays rained down on the station and Clear Channel. Local and national law enforcement groups called for the radio duo to be fired and threatened a boycott. The St. Louis Police Officers' Association called the comments an "outrage" and "insulting."

In the broadcast, the deejays offered condolences to both Johnson's and McEntee's families. They also disavowed one caller's comments suggesting that the officer deserved to have been shot.

Clear Channel general manager Lee Clear announced Aug. 3 that the deejays were fired.

KATZ is the St. Louis market's top-rated hip-hop and R&B format station. It is the fourth highest-rated station overall. The "Kaos in the Morning" show was the market's second highest-rated weekday morning show among 18- to 34-year-olds.

Both Sherman and KATZ declined to release the deejays' legal names. DJ Kaos declined comment through his attorney.

DJ Kaos and DJ Sylli Asz had worked together on the show since January. The show featured a familiar format: heavy music rotation interspersed with weather, news and bantering bits. The deejays relied heavily on humor, like prank phone calls they called "Janky Calls" and tongue-in-cheek contests like "Worst Police Department."

The pair also did lots of racial humor bits, such as on the July 13 broadcast, when they wondered why baseball has so few black players.

They also showed a more serious side. St. Louis Police Chief Joe Mokwa had appeared on the show last month to talk about racial tension in the city. They planned to host a roundtable with police officers on July 15 to talk about police brutality and racial profiling.

Reporter Todd C. Frankel
E-mail: tfrankel@post-dispatch.com
Phone: 314-340-8110

[IfasehunReincarnated]

What did DJ Kaos really say?
His lawyer rolls tape

By Carol Daniel

For the St. Louis American

I've never been involved in espionage, but last week I felt as if I had entered the world of secret passwords when I sat in a church office in North St. Louis with an attorney and one other reporter and listened to an edited version of "the tape."

This was the tape of a July 13, 2005 broadcast on hip-hop radio station KATZ 100.3-The Beat with personalities DJ Kaos and Silli Asz. It was a show that cost two men their jobs over claims they had taken calls on their show on how to harm police officers.

Who can forget early in July, when Kirkwood police Sgt. William McEntee was shot and killed in his patrol car. The alledged shooter, 19-year-old Kevin Johnson, was reportedly distraught over the death of his little brother, who had collapsed and died from a heart defect 90 minutes before the shooting. Family members claim police did not do enough to help the dying child, but instead focused on searching for Johnson because of a probation violation. Johnson turned himself in to the Northwoods Police Department on Friday, July 8.

News of Johnson's surrender made it onto a local online message board. I have read postings from July 9 through 11, including descriptions of the Northwoods police chief as illiterate and of many Northwoods police officers as criminals and morons.

After being fired from The Beat, DJ Kaos hired attorney Scott Sherman, who believes the July 13th radio show was blown out of proportion.

The deejays were initially suspended. Clear Channel issued an apology and laid out plans for the pair to make amends. Meanwhile, the local chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police started calling for their dismissal and a boycott of the station's advertisers. Kaos and Silli Asz were terminated on August 3.

Clear Channel did not release a tape of the show, and the Fraternal Order of Police president admits that he never heard the show. He even told me that hearing it would make no difference in their position. Okay...

In my column about the issue, I took the apology from Clear Channel as an admission that something was inappropriate. Sherman says the apology came from management and not Kaos, who maintains that he did nothing wrong.

So where did the edited tape that I heard come from? Sherman can't say. Why was it edited? Sherman says he had only the music and commercials edited out. This is the point that raises an eyebrow.

I agreed that I would not take a tape recorder with me to the listening session. I have asked to interview Kaos, but he has not consented. I took several pages of notes on a yellow legal pad as I listened to about an hour and a half of the edited five-hour show. I did not transcribe every word, and I have not heard the entire show.

The main point of that morning's show appeared to be the on-air survey of the worst police departments in this area.

One caller said, "Berkeley, because they always catch me speeding!" DJ Kaos responded, "You shouldn't be speeding."

A different caller criticized the Pine Lawn Police Department over an investigation of a burglary at her home, saying, "They suck." Kaos explained that Pine Lawn had a new police chief and a new mayor and things were different.

Still another caller claimed she worked with dirty cops and they get what they deserve. Kaos said in a steady voice, "Nobody deserves to die." He added, "These views are not the views of Clear Channel or the hosts of this show. This is what the people say, not what I say."

Another caller said that a lot of white police officers would benefit from sensitivity training, because many respond to blacks out of fear and ignorance breeds fear.

It was then that Kaos said, "Let me say this: 80 percent of cops are punks, meaning without a badge and gun they're nothing. They can't even fight."

Kaos claimed on the air that officers have told him that if they are arresting someone who is trying to talk gangsta, saying things like, "Take off that badge, I'll kick your..." that the officer who is for real will oblige.

Then Kaos asked, "Silli, if you are in that situation, you trying to be gangsta, what's the first thing you go for?"

Silli's answer? "I go for the walkie-talkie."

Kaos called him a smart man, saying, "Most people would go for the gun, but if you get the walkie-talkie, he can't call the calvary in."

Then Kaos added, "I'll say this to the police officers that aren't punks, that can go out and protect and serve even without a gun or Mace, to keep doing what you do."

Are those irresponsible comments? Did they go too far?

It isn't a conversation I would ever have on the air. I also don't know too many radio station bosses who would say, "Sure, go right ahead with that ‘worst police department' call-in show, eight days after a police officer was killed."

Here is what you may find troubling: that an organization (of supposed public servants) could call for your termination and call for a boycott of your advertisers based on something they haven't even heard.

And what of the vast majority of news reports on the incident that took the cops' claims without question and the national broadcast publication, R & R, which described the show as "a clinic on how to fight and/or disarm police officers"?

Could the attorney have edited out such calls? Certainly. I am still pushing to hear the entire five-hour show, because the animosity between many black folk and many police officers doesn't need to be fostered by misinformation or ignorance.

Surely there is something for all of us to learn here. Think before you speak, and listen before you react.