Not just police: NY government hates firefighters, too

New York politicians’ hatred of police has led to short-staffing and rising crime in the city.  Now they seem to determined to do the same thing to the New York Fire Department.

Last month, FDNY commissioner Laura Kavanagh said she would “hunt down” firefighters who booed New York attorney general Letitia James during a promotion ceremony.

Videos of the ceremony show the crowd booing James and chanting “Trump” while James was speaking.  Although she acted at the time as though it was no big deal, behind the scenes, you know what hit the fan.

According to The Daily Caller, memos and emails from the Uniformed Fire Officers Association (UFOA) and Uniformed Firefighters Association circulated on social media that criticized the firefighters for their actions as inappropriate to do “on the job’s time” and insisted that those firefighters “must do better.” 

This would have been an appropriate and understandable response.  An argument can be made that it was inappropriate, but it was also free speech.

Those firefighters don’t give up their right to free speech when they become firefighters.  They weren’t violent.  It was a peaceful assembly, which is also guaranteed under the First Amendment.

However, the FDNY brass took things too far.  FDNY chief of department John Hodges told members of the FDNY in an email that the department’s Bureau of Investigation and Trials would identify those who booed and take action against them.

“BITS is investigating this, so they will figure out who the members are,” Hodges wrote.  “I recommend they come forward.  I have been told by the commissioner it will be better for them if they come forward and we don’t have to hunt them down.”

He demanded a list of the participants and said that if they don’t come forward, they will be tracked down using video from the event.

Attorney Alan Dershowitz told The New York Post, “Firefighters have an absolute constitutional right to boo the attorney general, and the government  has no power to punish them for it.”  “So efforts to get the names of the booers is an effort by the government to chill free speech and is unconstitutional.”  

Although the NYFD backed off this witch hunt, the problem didn’t end.

Brooklyn Federal Court judge Nicholas Garaufis recently cited the incident to imply that a racist culture persists at the FDNY.  He ordered Kavanagh and corporation counsel Sylvia Hinds-Radix to appear before him at a status conference to discuss the settlement in the Vulcan Society of Black Firefighters’ case against the FDNY in May, the New York Daily News reported. 

“I’ve lived in New York City all my life.  I know what the problem is.  And believe me, front and center is what happened the other day.  This doesn’t have to do with politics, this has to do with race,” Garaufis responded, according to N.Y. Daily News.

“I don’t know if you had an opportunity to just see the vile nature of these members even when we were at Christian Cultural Center where they started booing and saying ‘Trump, Trump Trump,’ while Letitia James was at the podium,” said Vulcan Society president Regina Wilson.  “This behavior is who this department is. Not all of them, but a large portion of them.  So when Black people go to work and have to deal with this and you don’t get any help or support really from the department, it’s horrific.” 

The Vulcan Society accused the city of discrimination in 2007.  The city agreed to settle for $98 million in back pay and benefits for aspiring minority firefighters in 2014.  In 2011, Garaufis ruled that firefighter exams intentionally discriminated against black people, according to the Daily News.  A federal appeals court later overturned that conclusion but allowed Garaufis’s solution, including the appointment of a federal monitor, to stand. 

So now city officials show once again that they don’t care about first responders, other than as a voting block to keep them in office.  It is something first responders are realizing.

They are also realizing that with first responders in demand across the country, they don’t have to remain where they aren’t appreciated and are hated.  Police led the way in the exodus from the city.  Firefighters will surely follow, and New Yorkers will suffer.

Michael A. Letts is the CEO and Founder of In-VestUSA, a national grassroots non-profit organization helping hundreds of communities provide thousands of bulletproof vests for their police forces through educational, public relations, sponsorship, and fundraising programs. 

Image via Picryl.