Latinos to Stern: Apology Is Not Accepted : Radio: Three groups call for a boycott of the syndicated program by stations, listeners and sponsors.

Latino organizations continue to express outrage over comments made by radio talk-show host Howard Stern in the wake of last month’s shooting death of Selena, the tejano music superstar.

The National Hispanic Media Coalition, during a news conference Monday in City of Commerce, called for stations to pull the nationally syndicated program off the air and said it would file complaints against Stern with the FCC.

Also condemning Stern’s comments Monday--and calling for listeners and sponsors to boycott the program--were spokespersons for the League of United Latin American Citizens and the American GI Forum, a national Latino veterans organization.

The groups also criticized Los Angeles-based radio talk-show hosts Joe Crummey of KMPC and Bill Handel of KFI for insensitive remarks about Selena, who was shot to death March 31 in Corpus Christi, Tex., allegedly by a woman who was her personal assistant and founder of her fan club.

But the ire of all three groups (and of City Councilman Richard Alatorre, who also attended the news conference) clearly was directed at Stern, whose program airs in Los Angeles on KLSX-FM.

“He was absolutely gross,” said Esther Renteria, chair emeritus of the National Hispanic Media Coalition. “He was talking about having sex with her in her coffin.”

Stern’s on-air apology last week, given only in Spanish, was dismissed as “insulting” by Alex Nogales, current chair of the National Hispanic Media Coalition, and “insincere” by Alatorre.

Nogales said that he is scheduled to meet today with Bob Moore, general manager at KLSX, at which time he will again express his complaints. Moore and others affiliated with Stern’s program were not available for comment.

“Howard Stern’s . . . remarks about Selena were totally insulting and showed his lack of respect for the dead as well as for the 25 million Americans of Hispanic descent,” Nogales said. “Adding insult to injury, Stern, who had insulted us in English, then decides to ‘apologize’ to us only in Spanish. . . .

Didn’t he want his other listeners to know he was apologizing?”

Alatorre called the controversial Stern “too irresponsible.”

“The pain and the anguish that was caused by Howard Stern to (Selena’s) family and to all Mexican Americans and Latinos throughout the world cannot be forgiven,” Alatorre said. “I listened to his apology and it was done in a very facetious way. It wasn’t done sincerely. I think it’s time the various stations that syndicate his program recognize that he is a liability.”

Crummey, who moved last year from KFI to KMPC, also found the shooting death of Selena “a subject of ridicule,” said the National Hispanic Media Coalition, which last year criticized Crummey for comments he made after the assassination of Luis Donaldo Colosio, a Mexican presidential candidate.

The coalition condemned Crummey and Handel for “deriding Mexican Americans, their culture and their music,” Renteria said. The two, saying they had never heard of Selena, expressed surprise about the outpouring of grief following her death, she said.

Crummey and Handel were not available for comment.