Kellie Baker, a 30-year-old woman with Down's syndrome, was trying to call her friend, Kelly Ann Burkhart, but dialed "The Mo Show," a program on a Canton, Ohio radio station, Q92, by mistake. The phone call took an odd and unsettling turn when "DJ Mo" started making fun of the way Kellie spoke.
"Eh, Uh ... I don’t want to come across -- obviously you have some sort of a speech impediment," Mo told Kellie. To which she replied, "Uh … no, this my voice." Realizing what was going on, Kellie tried to get off the phone, but Mo stopped her. And then things got much, much worse.
Here's a snippet of their conversation:
DJ Mo: Hey, I can’t -- I, I, I -- listen -- I can’t understand you. Again I can’t be the first person to have told you that it’s tough to understand you.
Kellie: All right, never mind.
DJ Mo: All right?
Kellie: I’ll see ya later ok, bye.
DJ Mo: K -- say it real slowly.
Kellie: Never mind, never mind.
DJ Mo: No, say it real slowly. I want to try to figure this out. It’s a little game.
Wow.
According to Kellie's sister, Kara Ball, after she hung up, she frantically called her mother crying. "She told my mom, 'I’m a 30-year-old woman, I have feelings too, and I hurt, too," Ball said. "Why would he make fun of me?'"
After the incident, DJ Mo was suspended -- still is. At first, Kellie's family was completely outraged and wanted him fired, but after several family conversations, they decided that they just want a face-to-face apology from him; and they want to use this opportunity to spread awareness on how to treat people with disabilities. DJ Mo has issued an apology to Kellie and says that he thought the phone call was a prank.
Be that as it may, radio stations typically pre-screen calls before putting them straight to air. You don't just dial up a radio station and quickly get connected to the DJ of your choice. I'm not quite sure how this phone call made it to air -- or why it went on so long. And this doesn't even sound like a prank phone call; it sounds like Baker dialed the wrong number and was looking for a girl named Kelly.
I hope that Kellie and her family get what they're looking for out of this terrible situation. If it were me, I'm not sure I'd be so forgiving. Everyone always seems really sorry when their jobs are in jeopardy.
What do you think of this?
Image via curtis.kennington/Flickr
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Comments 30
It's not his fault. Some people with down syndrome are hard to understand. I can see why he thought it was a prank. I'm sure that if he knew that she mentally retarded he wouldn't have acted that way. Remove the suspension!
Mentally challenged you mean??
No, Ireland69, I don't mean mentally challenged. The term mentally challenged is the politically correct term. Mentally retarded is the medical term.
Okay, so what if he makes fun of everyone in the same manner on his show? What is wrong with society today that making fun of others (whether or not they have a disability) is accepted as funny and a form of entertainment?