Radio host suggests 'nice school shooting' needed to distract from Donald Trump impeachment

Follow our live impeachment updates HERE

A US radio show has been cancelled after its host suggested a "nice school shooting" was needed to break up coverage of President Donald Trump’s impeachment.

Chuck Bonniwell made the flippant comment during a Tuesday airing of his show 'Chuck and Julie’ on Colorado radio station 710 KNUS.

Complaining about the “never-ending” impeachment proceedings, he told his wife and co-host Julie Hayden: “You know, you wish for a nice school shooting to interrupt (it).”

Ms Hayden hurriedly dismissed the comment, repeating: “'No, no. Don't even say that. No, don't even say that.”

Addressing the audience, she added: “Don't call us. Chuck didn't say that.”

The following day, the network released a statement saying the show had been axed in light of the comments.

It read: “Given the history of school violence that has plagued our community, 710 KNUS confirms that an inappropriate comment was made on the Chuck & Julie show by co-host Chuck Bonniwell.

“A programming decision was made to end the program immediately.”

Colorado has suffered a number of high profile gun attacks, including the 1999 Columbine High School Shooting in which 12 students and a teacher were killed.

There have been four more school shootings in the state since then, with the most recent taking place at the STEM School Highlands Ranch in May, killing one student and injuring eight others.

The father of the boy killed in STEM described Mr Bonniwell’s comments as “unbelievable”.

The now ex-host reportedly tweeted his own statement on Wednesday insisting his remarks were not intended to be taken seriously.

"I made an inappropriate comment meant as a joke. I'm sorry it was not received that way," he wrote, according to ABC News.

The post is no longer available.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in