WRKO suspends show host after homosexual slur

Radio station WRKO suspended talk-show host John DePetro yesterday for using a slur for homosexual in reference to Turnpike Authority chairman Matthew J. Amorello.

The morning host, who calls himself ``The Independent Man," is suspended for two days for using the epithet on air during a discussion of Amorello's conduct following the ceiling collapse of the I-90 connector. After uttering the slur, DePetro added: ``I don't mean gay [slur]. I mean like he's a sissy boy. He's a little sissy boy."

Neither DePetro nor Amorello returned calls late yesterday, but WRKO program director Jason Wolfe said Entercom, which owns the station, has ``zero tolerance for racial intolerance. . . . Mr. DePetro has 72 hours to think about this." Wolfe said he purposely chose the word ``racial" because ``people will lump everything in together."

The conservative talk-show host, who has been on the air at WRKO-AM (680) for three years, made the remark while talking about Amorello's decision to bring his wife, Charlotte, and his spokeswoman, Mariellen Burns , to the funeral of Milena Del Valle , the woman who was killed when tunnel ceiling panel s collapsed. DePetro said his WRKO colleague Howie Carr calls Amorello ``fat Matt" and then suggested it should be ``[slur] Matt."

According to a rough transcript of the remarks provided to the Globe, DePetro went on to say: ``I just mean the way when you're sophomore, juvenile in grammar school, and somebody would say you're like a sissy boy [slur] . . . I just want to be very clear about that. I don't mean gay [slur]; I mean like sissy boy. He's a sissy boy."

DePetro is no stranger to controversy. After Imette St. Guillen was murdered in New York City in February , DePetro said the 24 -year-old college student from Boston was ``asking for trouble" by being alone in a bar at 4 a.m. The comment outraged St. Guillen's parents and made headlines, but WRKO did not punish the host.

``It seems as though he intentionally tries to rile up his audience to get the most rabid listeners to call in," said Bill Walczak , chief executive officer of Dorchester's Codman Square Health Center and a recent guest on DePetro's show. ``The deeper the hatred that comes out of the mouths of people, the more successful the ratings."

Wolfe said DePetro will be off the air today and tomorrow, and will return Friday morning with an apology. In 2003, Wolfe had a hand in the suspension of two hosts on WEEI-AM, a station also owned by Entercom, after they compared a gorilla that had escaped from Franklin Park Zoo to a Metco student. The hosts, Gerry Callahan and John Dennis, were suspended for two weeks. In that case, Entercom also pledged to fund scholarships for Metco students and provide time for public-service announcements for Metco and affiliated groups.

WRKO, which calls itself ``Boston's Talk Station," has a lineup of mostly right-wing hosts, including Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, Matt Drudge, and DePetro. But it is about to begin broadcasting Red Sox baseball, too. The station just signed a deal estimated to be worth between $13 million and $14 million a year. Starting next season, Red Sox games will be split between WRKO and WEEI.