Mayor de Blasio says he believes in redemption and defends his decision allowing the son of former commissioner Salvatore Cassano to become a firefighter.
“I have a respectful disagreement because I believe in redemption,” de Blasio said, citing his work to make Rikers Island a place people can turn their lives around. “I can’t say it for one group of people and then say, well, it’s not okay for another group of people.”
Joseph Cassano, the son of former commissioner Salvatore Cassano, entered the firefighting academy on Monday — sparking ire from elected officials, the Vulcan Society and others given the inflammatory online comments that led him to resign from the EMS in 2013.
Asked whether he’d hire someone with Cassano’s history, de Blasio said he would.
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