Chief Leader – May 26, 2015
by SARAH DORSEY
Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro issued a department-wide order last week slamming those who leak firefighter information to the press as “bring[ing] dishonor to our family,” just after reminding them that diverse members were “all…equal here.”
The order, in which he promised to “investigate these improper releases of information and do all we can to identify those responsible,”
was issued on May 19, just two days after a newspaper story about an African-American probationary firefighter who was accused of repeatedly avoiding fires. Avoiding the Heat?
Michael D. Johnson, a member of Engine Co. 257 in Canarsie, Brooklyn, was accused by anonymous FDNY sources in the New York Post of having feigned a low air supply to avoid an April blaze. They said it took him three attempts to pass the Fire Academy and that he had to return for training twice after joining the workforce. He is one of nearly 300 black and Latino firefighters given priority hiring under a Federal Judge’s order in a discrimination suit against the department.
Mr. Nigro began his edict with talk of equality among the FDNY “family,” writing that, “We are there for one another, both on and off duty. We have each other’s backs…In our family, all are equal. Men and women of all races, faiths and sexual orientation or identity—all are equal.”
He then said, “It pains me to write this reminder, as a very few among us have decided to disparage their brothers and sisters publicly. Behind some misguided sense of ‘protecting the standards,’ their public criticism of our members is an embarrassment to me and should be to all of you.”
UFA Head Shares Anger
Uniformed Firefighters Association President Steve Cassidy gave similar comments at a book reading May 20 for former Chief reporter Ginger Adams Otis’s book “Firefight: The Century-Long Battle to Integrate New York’s Bravest.”
Asked by a young black audience member about recent leaks related to female and minority firefighters, and why Mr. Johnson was outed, Mr. Cassidy said, “This public thing was offensive; I didn’t like it…I don’t think it would have happened to a white Firefighter. I also think that this is related to this particular Firefighter being a priority hire, and there are a lot of people out there who have a negative view of that group, which I find unacceptable also. The reality is all these candidates went through the training at the Fire Academy, it’s a strenuous academy, requires a lot of training, and they all passed…”
Reached by phone, Vulcan Society of Black Firefighters President Regina Wilson last week said that Mr. Johnson is not a Vulcan member and the group is not advocating for or representing him, though as a priority hire, Vulcan lawyers will provide basic information to him about his rights as an employee.
‘Wasn’t Under the Radar’
Ms. Wilson declined to comment on Mr. Johnson’s performance on the job, since she didn’t work in his firehouse and didn’t have direct knowledge of it. She was his instructor in the Academy, however, and said, “He was never someone who was [on] the radar of being deficient” then.
She expressed frustration that women and people of color have been targeted lately in the press while white men who struggle in the department seem to get by unnoticed.
“I just don’t think that Michael Johnson or anybody whose information has been leaked to the press, that it was done fairly,” she said. “…Not every firefighter is a fit firefighter…It’s amazing to me that only women and people of color are highlighted when you talk about lowering of standards.”
Seconded by Cassidy
She added, “There’s firefighters right now that you could pull [from] their firehouses and they would have deficiencies. But you would never hear about it.”
Mr. Cassidy backed up that view. At the reading, the audience member asked about the term “kink-chaser”—firefighter slang for someone who’d rather stay back and check for kinks in the hose than run into a burning building. That behavior must be fairly common if firefighters have developed a term for it, he suggested.
“Listen, I’ve said this—I said it at the union meeting last week: anybody who says they haven’t worked with somebody that they didn’t think was up to the job, isn’t telling the truth,” Mr. Cassidy replied.
During the last probie class, the Fire Department returned to an earlier grading method on a physical training course called the FST. Before 2008, that Functional Skills Training course, in which candidates perform actions that firefighters do on the job, was part of ongoing training in the Academy; beginning in that year, it was timed and graded. For a few classes in 2013 and 2014, earning less than a 75 percent on that test triggered an automatic fail, but this year, it was returned to a less-all-encompassing place in a candidate’s overall grade.
Changing the Standards?
After recent articles about that change and about various struggling FDNY members, “all the firefighters are talking about lowering of standards, but what’s amazing to me is that the last five classes have met the highest physical requirements of any classes before them,” Ms. Wilson said, since the FST was never part of a probie’s grades before.
Peter Gleason, Mr. Johnson’s attorney, said he has requested a meeting with high-level FDNY executives and a representative of the Mayor’s Office over the matter.
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