Radio DJs Play, Mock Marblehead 911 Calls

MARBLEHEAD, MA — Fred Toettcher and Rich Shertenlieb, co-hosts of the Toucher & Rich Show on 98.5 FM pulled no punches as they played —and ridiculed—real 911 calls from real Marblehead residents to the Marblehead police department on their show Thursday morning.

"What are rich people calling (the police) for?"Shertenlieb said.

The calls came from a mother whose son was "being frustratingly oppositional" by refusing to get out of bed to go to camp, a man who wanted to complain about a neighbor washing his boat and a woman who could not get her television to work. The calls played into the hosts' belief Marblehead has a "crap load of money."

"This is scared-straight Marblehead, where the police show and force the kid out of bed to go to summer camp," Shertenlieb said on the broadcast. The dispatcher did, for the record, send a cruiser to the woman's home.

The show has a long-running feature called "Everyone's Angry In Brookline," where they play and comment on 911 calls made in that town. But on Thursday, they decided to expand by asking listeners to suggest other towns Boston suburbs for the bit.

"So many people suggested Marblehead. Before this it was so far off my radar," Toettcher said. "The thing I knew about Marblehead is it was like walking into 'The Truman Show,' it's so beautiful. So I was surprised."