D.C. Fire and EMS put five firefighters on desk duty after one of them posted a picture critical of D.C. police on Facebook and four others commented on it.
After a D.C. police officer wrote a traffic ticket for a firefighter, that firefighter took a picture of the officer walking toward his cruiser and posted it on his Facebook page with a comment to the effect of “This is why we should be careful and take our time getting to incident scenes,” sources told News4.
The post is said to be so inflammatory it was brought directly to the attention of both Fire Chief Kenneth Ellerbe and Police Chief Cathy Lanier.
Top D.C. fire and police officials viewed those comments as a reference to the March incident in which a D.C. motorcycle officer waited 20 minutes after being struck by a hit-and-run driver before being transported to a hospital by an ambulance from Prince George’s County.
D.C. fire immediately transferred those five firefighters from the field to desk duty.
“Right now it’s in the investigation phase,” said Ed Smith, of the firefighter union. “Hopefully they’ll be back to duty soon, and then we’ll have to deal with any disciplinary proceedings if there are any depending on the outcome of the investigation.”
The temporary reassignment of that many firefighters affects staffing levels, Smith said.
“Having these members off the street on desk duty definitely adds to the overtime problem and other members getting relief from duty,” he said.
Through a spokesman, Ellerbe said the fire department can’t comment because it is a personnel matter.
The post was removed from the firefighter’s Facebook page.
Four firefighters commented on the original post, and were also assigned to desk duty, according to Ed Smith, president of the D.C. Firefighters Association.
“There isn’t a social media policy in place,” says Smith. “If members are going to be held accountable then it needs to be upfront and the rules need to be known about what’s in bounds and what’s out of bounds,” says Smith.
Smith says the issue isn’t only a public safety concern.
“Employees in all workplaces are struggling with social media policies,” says Smith.
The head of the firefighters’ union says establishing a policy reflects expectations, but also provides for free speech.
“You have to find that fine line between keeping the public trust and respecting members’ First Amendment rights,” says Smith.
Smith says he’s reached out to his counterpart in the police union, “just to let him know we respect our brothers and sisters in blue.”
D.C. Fire has not responded to a request for comment.
Our emotions run high after a day like yesterday. We are outraged. We want to help. But for most of us our only direct connection to the people in Boston is through the keyboard of our computer via Facebook. When we see a picture like the one above our first instinct is to immediately share this outrage with our Facebook friends. As of 8:20 AM EST, this version of this image was shared by more than 37,000 people (up from 31,000 an hour earlier).
But do you know what you are sharing? Consuming news and information on the Internet, Facebook and Twitter requires a healthy dose of skeptisism. There is an enourmous amount of crap out there, including this picture and the description with it.
It was not a girl, but an eight-year-old boy who was one of three people murdered yesterday in Boston. His name is Martin Richard. His death is tragic enough that we don’t need a back story connecting a child’s fictional death to the Newtown tragedy to get our attention. Even if you didn’t know that information, there were a couple pretty obvious warning signs that this image and message were a hoax, including that this girl was participating, not in the Boston Marathon, but a 5K.
There are people out there who know many of us are easy marks after something like this. Some of them will be asking you for money. Others will try to suck you into their political cause. And then there are the ones who get their jollies by getting us all worked up over something that just didn’t happen.
We all have friends on Facebook whose day isn’t complete unless they are outraged or mourning something or many things. There is no filter between what they read and the share button. Some of it comes from what a journalist in St. Louis referred to a number of years ago as COD, Compulsive Outrage Disorder. For others, it comes from a good, well-meaning place of just wanting to show compassion.
Believe it or not, there are ways any of us sitting at home watching can help after a tragedy that go a little beyond telling your friends to wear a certain color or to post a certain picture. Among them, volunteering for an organization that is assisting victims or donating to a legitimate charity in honor of a victim.
And while it takes more time and effort than liking a slogan or a poster on Facebook, we can actually increase our own knowledge and undertsanding of what happened by finding the real stories of the real victims and taking the time to read them. Then maybe you will be inspired to write a few sentences to send to your friends, sharing your own thoughts rather than forwarding someone else’s slogan or agenda.
But even if you don’t like any of those suggestions, please just do a favor to all your Facebook friends and be a little more cautious and skeptical before hitting the share button. When we share a picture like this one, I think we are actually dishonoring the people we were intending to honor.
This is a little different. While, through the years, we have seen a number of cases of someone keying up or putting false messages on a fire department’s radio system, this is the first time I recall a fire department using social media to call out a suspect. The news story done by WNEP-TV (above and below) does not mention who may be causing this interference. But an April 4 post from the Hazleton Fire Department on its Facebook page gets pretty specific about a suspect and brings a lot of pointed comments.
Firefighters in Luzerne County are turning to police to help them find the person responsible for intentionally interfering with emergency communications on a county-designated radio frequency.
Hazleton Deputy Fire Chief Brian Mandak told Newswatch 16 that he believes the same person has interfered with the frequency used by firefighters in the southern end of Luzerne County several times in the past few months.
Mandak said last Thursday night, the same man used the frequency to tell firefighters that they did not need to respond to the scene, where a pedestrian had reportedly been hit by a train near Vine Street.
The firefighters ignored the confusing chatter, and Mandak said that they continued driving to the scene and were needed to help load the injured man into an ambulance.
Last week we posted a helmet-cam video from a Dallas, Texas firefighter showing the initial attack at a house fire. Now it is the video that is apparently under attack. According to news reports, the fire chief isn’t happy it was shot or posted to YouTube and it is making news.
Administration sources told FOX 4 the Chief is angry about the video being taken and posted. The source stopped short of calling it an official “investigation,” but did say it is being looked into.
It’s unclear if Dallas Fire Rescue has a policy regarding helmet cam video. It’s also unclear who the camera belongs to and who, if anyone, sanctioned the video’s posting.
A few hundred views have become several thousand, and it’s become quite the sensation — so much so that officials with Dallas Fire-Rescue announced Friday night that the firefighter who shot the video with his helmet camera would not be made available for interviews, despite a legion of reporters who gathered outside Fire Station No. 5 on St. Augustine Road.
In a note sent to media moments ago, DFR spokesman Jason Evans writes “that several media outlets are camped out across the street” from the fire station, but that “we are not granting any interview requests in regards to the video recently posted on line by one of our firefighters.”
It is getting a lot uglier in New York over social media use by those in public safety. Today’s article by Candace M. Giove and Brad Hamilton in the New York Post takes the problem of Social Media Assisted Career Suicide Syndrome (SMACSS) in FDNY EMS beyond the fire commissioner’s son and the lieutenant with the racist tweets.
PLEASE PAY ATTENTION TO THE FOLLOWING: My prediction is this article will be national news by tomorrow and will have reverberations across the country on the use of social media by fire, EMS and police. If you have a similar problem in your own department, my suggestion is to take care of it now before it becomes news. There will soon be reporters everywhere looking for this.
Here’s how the article begins:
The Bad Lieutenant is part of a sick clique.
In addition to uploading racist rants and Nazi nonsense, EMS Lt. Timothy Dluhos also posted pictures of patients, including one of a heavy-set woman with a snarky caption Photoshopped over her wheelchair: “Wide Load.”
Publicizing photos of the ill, injured or dead without permission is a violation of city rules and federal privacy laws, but some first responders can’t resist snapping shots of people they’re supposed to be helping.
The photos of grisly corpses, gruesome wounds or humiliating circumstances provide fodder for mocking and gawking.
You may recall last Sunday’s story where reporter Candace Giove confronted Lt. Dluhos about his hate filled tweets. That’s when Lt. Dluhos, who is now suspended without pay, broke down and cried over the possibility of losing his job. Since then people claiming to be supporters of the lieutenant have targeted Candace Giove with a series of hate filled messages and death threats. Here is an excerpt from the New York Post article by Brad Hamilton:
On Wednesday night, Footer and P-Rock, hosts of an online radio program called “The Red Show,” poured out their admiration for Dluhos.
“I love him,” gushed P-Rock. “He’s a brave motherf–ker, but in the end he’s going to come out fine . . . He’s been cornered as a racist, and that’s not true. Tim’s our guy.”
“The guy’s getting railroaded here,” remarked Footer.
Dluhos called in to thank the radio show for its support. The two hosts then took pot shots at Giove. “Like I said to that dumb c—, ‘He’s out there saving lives!’ ” said Footer.
Then the hosts tried to guess the reporter’s ethnicity: “For me she looked a little yellow, like Middle Eastern. I don’t think she should be allowed to carry a backpack.”
Social Media Assisted Career Suicide Syndrome (SMACSS) seems to be a big problem these days. A week after exposing the tweets that resulted in the resignation from FDNY EMS of the son of Fire Commissioner Sal Cassano, The New York Post is at it again. This time they confronted EMS Lt. Timothy Dluhos about a series of ”racist, sexist, anti-Semitic and anti-Asian comments” on his Twitter feed. Lt. Dluhos broke down and cried.
Susan Edelman and Candace M. Giove wrote they met up with Dluhos on Friday in front of his home. Dluhos is 34-years-old and assigned to the Bedford-Stuyvesant area of Brooklyn. He told the reporters he was sorry and his life is ruined.
In his tweets, Dluhos referred to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg as “King Jew” and “King Heeb”.
* “I’m going to give up racial insults for Lent,” he tweeted Feb. 12. “Jesus that didn’t [last] too long. F–ken chinks can’t drive.”
* “Hahaha! I work with the coloreds,” he wrote in a Feb. 8 exchange. “For 12 years so that s–t just run off on me.”
* “Too bad he didn’t have rabies or AIDS and too bad he didn’t bite King Heeb’s face off,” he tweeted on Groundhog Day, Feb. 2, recalling when the groundhog Staten Island Chuck nipped Bloomberg at an event at the Staten Island Zoo.
* A gold Nazi-era pin with a German U-boat and a swastika is “my most prized artifact,” he boasted on Jan. 30.
* He repeatedly Photoshopped an image of an unnamed black teen — putting a Hitler mustache on one photo and a surgical mask on another with the caption, “I’s be a doxter.”
It comes less than a week after The Post exposed the vile racist and anti-Semitic tweets posted by Fire Commissioner Sal Cassano’s own EMT son. Joseph Cassano, 23, who quit the next day.
This story sure is different. I don’t recall anything similar that I’ve posted to STATter911.com or covered in my career. It brings up some interesting questions about the role of firefighters. Hartford, Connecticut firefighters at Engine 8 are under investigation because of a YouTube video that city officials believe was shot from the second floor of the firehouse. It shows kids jumping off a one story roof of the public library across the street into snow banks.
The Fire Chief saw the video and demanded an investigation right away. He wanted to know if his nearby firefighters took the video, and why they did nothing to stop it.
The group behind the camera cheered on the kids as they jumped from the roof of the city library into deep snow banks that covered the sidewalks. They even commented on possible injuries.
The city needed to know if firefighters at the Frog Hollow Fire Station across the street were behind the recording. It was the only building in the area that could provide the camera angle. Officials also needed to know why the men stayed inside and laughed instead of stopping the kids from getting hurt.
The city was taking a close look and listen to the video to figure out if firefighters were a part of this and who they were.
A Miami-Dade Fire-Rescue captain demoted last May to firefighter after posting a controversial comment to his personal Facebook page about the Trayvon Martin case testified yesterday at his arbitration hearing. According to news reports, Brian Beckmann, who wrote that urban youth were products of “(expletive), ignorant, pathetic, welfare dependent excuses for parents” and made disparaging remarks about a prosecutor, mostly stood his ground on his comments and his right to make them.
At the arbitration hearing, Beckmann, speaking for the first time publicly, said the use of a single profanity in the posting was offensive, but none of the rest was in “the context” that it was offered.
In a statement given early on the Miami Herald, Beckmann said he was a “private citizen” with the “same right to freely express an opinion on any subject” as any other citizen.
On his Facebook page, however, Beckmann held himself out as more than a private citizen.
“I did identify myself somewhere in there, I believe I did identify myself as a captain of Station 65,” Beckmann conceded under grilling by an assistant county attorney.
Beckmann is asking the arbitrator to reinstate him because he believes his right to due process was violated. He says the determination of his punishment was based on politics and not objective judgment by his supervisors.
“This was a very predominant issue in the media. You couldn’t turn on a TV or sit at a table at a fire station without people talking about it in some context,” said Beckmann. “It was, on top of that, extremely frustrating for me to hear what I heard in that press conference. This was something that invoked a response in me that, I was upset, I was very upset at Angela Corey for her actions. I found it very irresponsible.”
In January, the county made its case to an arbitrator. The county argued Beckmann violated its social media policy by speaking on behalf of his fellow coworkers in his private post.
I’ve been following WJBK-TV reporter Charlie LeDuff’s reports for a number of years watching him try to hold three different fire commissioners and a mayor accountable for the dismal state of the Detroit Fire Department. His is an advocacy style of journalism that’s in your face. Very few TV reporters in the country are allowed to present stories in the manner LeDuff does.
One reason I like LeDuff’s reports is because they stand out from the blandness and cookie cutter reporting that plagues local TV news. His style is effective in getting attention to problems that might otherwise be ignored. Many of these problems have Charlie saying out loud what many viewers at home are saying, “How the hell can that be?”. And the reports usually show Charlie chasing down those who have some responsibility for it being that way.
The Detroit Fire Department memo we published on Saturday that prohibits firefighters from climbing aerial ladders unless there is an immediate life threat to civilians or firefighters is an example of that type of story. It’s outrageous. All of us are asking how can it be that no one has made sure an entire fleet of 19 ladder trucks has been getting annual and five year ladder inspections? This outrage should be a slam dunk for LeDuff who has been trying to get to the bottom of failures at the maintenance shop, including inspections, for more than a year.
But from what I can see, Charlie blew this one. The facts just don’t support the premise of Charlie’s report. I can’t tell if it’s a reading comprehension issue after he looked at last week’s memo from Chief Craig Dougherty or if it was because Charlie was trying too hard to sensationalize a story that really doesn’t need to be sensationalized.
Charlie LeDuff telling his viewers something that is blatantly false, that the Detroit Fire Department doesn’t have a ladder to get a person out if they became trapped in this top floor apartment. But does it matter that he’s wrong?
LeDuff spends much of this report talking to people about about how Detroit firefighters now can’t rescue anyone from upper floors. He shows various buildings where people will be out of luck. While one of those illustrations was a second or third floor apartment where most firefighters would throw a ground ladder anyway, Charlie is ignoring the fact the memo clearly states the aerial ladders can still be used for rescues. His report is very misleading and in some cases dead wrong.
Charlie could have worked his magic in so many other ways with a story like this. In ways that the facts support. He could have asked people whether they trust being brought down a ladder that the fire commissioner is telling firefighters not to climb unless absolutely necessary. He could have asked if operating master streams from these ladders puts people around the rigs in jeopardy. He could have asked, as the union president did, what else isn’t being inspected. And if he wanted to be more dramatic, the facts would probably justify asking citizens, “Would you rather take your chance with the fire or the ladder that might collapse underneath you?”
The question I have is for you. Does LeDuff’s handling of the facts of this story really matter? Does it undermine his credibity? Or does all that matters here, is the watchdog of the people once again showed that the city’s leaders screwed up, again, which they most certainly did?
I like to think that getting it right is important. That was important for me as a reporter. I also believe if you are going to put it all out there the way LeDuff does you better have it right. But my gut tells me I’m probably wrong. That, in the end, I will be the only one bringing this up, and most people will just say right on, Charlie.
In March of 1977 a group of Hanafi Muslims got the attention of the world after taking over three buildings in Washington, DC, killing two men, wounding another, and holding hostages for 39 hours. They forced one of the hostages to contact a local radio station and relay their demands. It is just one of many examples where hostage takers, or those barricaded and surrounded by law enforcement, have attempted to get their message broadcast by radio and TV stations and printed in newspapers.
What happened in Baltimore last night is an important reminder that this whole concept of message transmission during such a standoff has changed. It’s another example of how the Internet and social media have greatly impacted the world of public safety. As we have often talked about here and in talks around the country, for better or worse, you no longer need to own a radio or TV transmitter or a printing press to reach the public. Those tools are in the hands of everyone.
A few years ago I predicted it wouldn’t be long before we would see video of a rescue at a fire shot and posted to YouTube by both the rescuer and rescuee. What James MacArthur did last night may be the law enforcement equivilent.
MacArthur, the publisher of the blog The Baltimore Spectator, had his home surrounded by a Baltimore City Police Department tactical unit serving an arrest warrant on a 2009 gun case. MacArthur broadcast live via Internet radio the negotiations to surrender with Lt. Jason Yerg who was attempting to get the blogger to come out of his house peacefully. The recording of that more than two hour conversation can be found here.
Police said Frank James MacArthur, 47, emerged late Saturday evening after having remained inside his home when officers sought to serve a warrant issued in June by his probation agent stemming from a 2009 gun case. Authorities said MacArthur had missed a court date.
With a tactical unit outside, MacArthur broadcast his talks with a police negotiator on The Baltimore Spectator website. He expressed frustration about his treatment by police, telling listeners, “I am surrounded by a bunch of men with guns.”
According to electronic court records, MacArthur was wanted for violation of probation regarding gun charges filed in 2009. Police went to his address in the 400 block of McKewin Avenue to take him into custody. When he refused to answer the door, a standoff ensued.
Eventually a police SWAT team was called to the scene because of police concerns about messages posted to MacArthur’s Twitter account during the past few days.
“What we’re seeing going on is an abuse of SWAT. I’m seeing that the Baltimore Police Department … that because of something said on Twitter allegedly, we so quickly end up with a SWAT situation. This is highly disturbing to me as a citizen of this town. That it’s so easy to get a SWAT deployment,” MacArthur said.
I credit the YouTube clip above with inspiring me to come up with a term to describe what I witnessed in the video and many other times in recent years: Social Media Assisted Career Suicide Syndrome or SMACSS. This video involves a story that first surfaced last week when Prince George’s County (MD) Police Department Chief Mark Magaw announced in a press conference that the two officers appearing in the video ”could be fired”.
The short film is titled “Driving While Black” and is a satirical look at the issue of racial profiling during traffic stops. As Chief Magaw described, the video uses “demeaning language, racial slurs, and crude stereotypes.” The latest development surrounding the video is that the head of the local chapter of the NAACP, Bob Ross, does not believe the officers should be fired. Here’s what he told reporter Andrea Noble of The Washington Times:
“I would agree with a suspension rather than firing because they are young and immature,” Mr. Ross said. “If they had done that without the uniforms and without the police car, it probably wouldn’t have been a big deal. … It really was a good skit but when you have government employees doing it, it’s a different story.”
We likely won’t know whether these two officers end up losing their jobs until they get their day in court, or at least a trial board. Fraternal Order of Police President Vince Canales, who condemned the video during the chief’s press conference, told Noble, “These officers are entitled to due process and we are going to let the investigative process play out.”
But I have to ask this question: How can these officers really expect anything other than having to find alternative employment?
They used a real police car belonging to the department (likely a take home vehicle of one of the officers), real uniforms with the department’s patch and real department issued police equipment. They simulated traffic stops with lights and siren along public roads in public view as they appeared as actors in a video not sanctioned by the department. The video spoofs a real concern that police are having to deal with nationwide and one that has been a source of serious image problems for the officers’ own department for decades.
I ask again: How can anyone expect to hold onto their job after doing all that?
And I have another question. How did they think they were going to get away with it once the video was posted on YouTube or distributed by other means?
I think I already know the answer to question two. All rational thinking seems to go out the window for too many people when it comes to social media. They somehow have been led to believe that whatever they want to put on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter is just fine and should be without consequence. And when it involves someone in public safety, they often give the impression they believe there are no special responsibilities that come with being a police officer, firefighter, EMT or paramedic.
Let me make it clear that this column isn’t really about these two officers or the video ”Driving While Black”. What I am writing here should not be seen as an opinion or a prompt for a discussion on the issue of racial profiling. My focus is on this video being the latest outrageous example of SMACSS. While this one may be especially sensitive for some because the topic of the video involves race, SMACCS cuts across many other topics and impacts public safety workers of all races, creeds, religions and ethnic origins. Just click on this link and scroll down. You will see plenty of other cases STATter911.com has covered where careers have been cut down because of bad judgment in using social media.
The best I can tell is that the underlying cause is pretty universal among law enforcement, firefighters and EMS who have contracted SMACSS. It comes from a belief that a person can post whatever they want, whenever they want. Uniform and public trust be damned.
While legislation in the form of a department’s social media policy may catch some cases before they happen, there is really no known cure. As long as there is social media and the Internet there will be those who can’t avoid contracting SMACCS. But it can be prevented through education.
It’s a really simple lesson, though a hard one to follow for those who were brought up to believe that everything in their lives must be shared with the world. But once they can fully understand and accept that there are legitimate ethical and legal issues where social media and public safety intersect, the chances for a long career will increase, while at the same time the likelihood of catching SMACSS will decrease.
According to the Baltimore Sun’s Kevin Rector a new policy covering social media and the Internet for Baltimore City firefighters bans wesbites like the one above, for Engine 8 and Truck 10. But, so far, that’s not the part of the policy that is proving controversial:
Under the policy, department personnel can be reprimanded for anything they write online about their jobs that doesn’t adhere to conduct rules, which require “good judgment” and “courtesy and respect to the public and to fellow employees.” The policy also restricts them from sharing information about fire scenes.
Fire Chief James S. Clack said the department crafted the policy to protect firefighters from getting into trouble for sharing sensitive information.
But union leaders called the policy too broad and said the department created it unilaterally after negotiations with union attorneys broke down last month. Social media and free-speech advocates balked at the scope of the policy and questioned its legality.
Bradley Shear, a Bethesda attorney who has advised state legislators in Annapolis on social media policy, said the new provisions are “troubling” and potentially unconstitutional.
“I think the policy is clearly suspect,” Shear said. “It’s over-broad, it’s retroactive, and I think they need to go back to the drawing board.”
Chief Clack told The Sun that while attorneys for the City threw in a lot of things, ”I’m going to be most interested in people when they’re working”,
The policy, like many these days, brings up as many questions as it answers. One thing that is banned is ”the real-time public disclosure of locations of deployed units, assets or personnel or any other real-time information from an incident scene.” Until earlier this year, IAFF Local 734 was using Baltimore City firefighters to provide such information to the public much as IAFF Local 36 in Washington, DC is doing currently. Could a fire department legally ban such union activity?
In our presentations around the country we have been pushing the fire service to be a trusted and valued source of information for the community by using social media on a daily basis. And we always add that they should be an instant source of information when things hit the fan. On the East Coast they hit the fan yesterday in a very big way.
Hurricane Sandy proved there are plenty of fire chiefs and other government officials who get that one of the most efficient ways to reach the community (and the traditional news media) during a critical incident is through Facebook, Twitter and the Internet. Especially when the power is out and the smartphone, which seems to be the primary source of information for the masses, is the ONLY line of communications.
I know I am will be missing some, but here are few in my region I followed that seemed to be doing a very good job of keeping the public informed via Twitter: Alexandria, VA (@AFDCHIEF200), Arlington County, VA (@ARLINGTONVA), Fairfax County, VA (@FAIRFAXCOUNTY), Howard County, MD (@HCDFRS, @HCDFRS_CHIEF, @KENULMAN), Montgomery County, MD (@MCFRS, @MONTGOMERYCOMD), Prince George’s County, MD (@PGFDPIO, @PGPDJULIE, @COUNTYEXECBAKER ), Washington, DC (@MAYORVINCEGRAY, @IAFF36).
Again, this is not an exhaustive list, just some local jurisdictions I noticed that had people (in some cases elected officials), communicating timely information on a regular basis as Sandy created serious problems. Many of these folks also understand that social media is two way communication and answered a lot of questions from the people they serve.
“I was just tweeting to people who were not able to get through to 911,” Rahimi told Yahoo News.
Rahimi posted updates to the official FDNY Twitter account urging those facing emergencies to dial 911. Because the response effort was divided among city government agencies, calling 911 allowed dispatchers to filter out assignments instead of every request going to the fire department.
“*Do not* tweet emergency calls,” Rahimi wrote as the storm hit.
But for those unable to access a phone or who could not get through, Rahimi was there to help.
Sandy once again proved there is also a lot of information on Twitter and Facebook that can’t be trusted. In some cases the mainstream news media took these social media rumors and misinformation as gospel and spread the information on its own platforms. I am not sure at exactly what point it was decided that journalists no longer need to verify the information they report. It’s one thing to report as gospel what Emily Rahimi is tweeting on @FDNY and something else completely when @JoeSchmoe is telling you the New York Stock Exchange is underwater or workers are trapped in a Con Ed plant.
“There was really nobody trapped in the building,” Drury said. “There was some people that were helped out, but they probably could have got out on their own.”
No doubt, those wanting social media in emergency management to go away and leave them alone are finding plenty of fodder for their arguments. False information is rampant. Incredibly, some use it for evil purposes. But, if you need arguments to counter these, consider this:
- communication resilience–nothing stays up and running like the Internet and these social media channels
- self correcting nature of the Internet (I heard about the false picture circulating by email through social media at least one day before it showed up)
- because this is where citizens and media get info, both true and false, it is incumbent on every official communicator to monitor and respond to the false info …
I would add that proving yourself by providing good and timely information when it is most needed will make you that valued, trusted and instant source of information the public once believed only came from radio, TV and newspapers.
As for my friends in the mainstream news media, if you want to remain relevant during this type of breaking news, you have to stop helping spread rumors. Practicing good journalism with social media will set you apart from the other crap that will always be out there during a major emergency. If not, there are a lot of government officials who seem to be ready to fill that role.
Okay, I will admit right at the top that no fire chief or anyone else has ever said to me they are concerned about being labeled a socialist if they get involved with social media. But I guess it could happen.
I’ve certainly heard lots of interesting excuses about why fire departments don’t have an official Facebook page or Twitter account or why no overall social media policy is in place. As Fire Critic Rhett Fleitz likes to point out, your department is involved in social media whether you decide to address it officially or not. The public and your firefighters are already posting plenty about your activities.
Tomorrow (Tuesday) at 11:00 AM EDT, I will team up with my friend Curt Varone for an IAFC webinar sponsored by American Military University titled ”Social Media Issues in the Fire Service”.
Curt brings a unique perspective to this topic as a fire service veteran and a lawyer. As much as anyone I’ve seen, Curt is on top of the ever changing legal landscape when it comes to social media and public safety. His FireLawBlog.com is a must read for today’s leaders.
They are still trying to figure out exactly what it is I bring to the table for this webinar (as am I). But it will likely have something to do with the good, the bad and the ugly that comes from social media. Essentially an overview of how to avoid some of the dangerous potholes and use SM as an important tool to communicate with the people you serve.
STATter911.com June 2009 reporting on this issue here & here
Some background from Dave
On the morning of July 2, 2009 I was tuned in to the most listened to radio station in the Nation’s Capital when the city’s fire chief told an interviewer that some of my reporting on a major news story was not true. Something like that gets the attention of a reporter.
While I was taken by surprise, like most people in the news business, it’s something I’ve dealt with before in my career. I did what I always did when such a claim was made. I rechecked the facts and tried to do as honest an evaluation as possible to see if I was being fair to all involved. The next day I posted all the details as I knew them, including the chief’s comments and an on the record statement from the fire department PIO, who also heard the broadcast. The spokesman directly contradicted his boss.
Now, more than three-years later, the same chief has written his own column about the news media and that same incident. In it, the chief now verifies most of what his PIO said and what I reported, in direct contrast to his words in 2009.
I fully expect some will accuse me of trying to settle an old score and others will find this absolutely boring. But I think it’s important to my credibility to once again place the facts as I know them before you and let you be the judge. It should also give you insight into how sometimes decisions are made about public information during a crisis, based not on good policy, but on a political leader’s ego.
1. Keep providing the information to the media, even if it is “stale” and already discussed items. Shutting the “news tap” off altogether is never a good idea.
2. The local media felt shut out when the national folks arrived (typically from their parent companies). I should have made extra efforts to include the local folks in every aspect of the media presentations. Remember that when the national and international press go home, you are left with the media locals, and they are always watching your department. Adding the local folks to a discussion wouldn’t have taken anything away from the reports and would have allowed the hometown media to feel a part of everything.
You will get no argument from me about keeping the information flowing and taking care of the local news media. I also made those exact points on the very day Chief Rubin’s column was posted while leading a class for a group of visiting officials from Southeast Asia. The topic was handling the press during critical incidents. In fact, I used the Metro crash as an example of how not to do deal with the news media. The incident has been a part of my presentations around the country during the last two years.
Better late than never
I need to thank Chief Rubin for writing this column. For the first time, in a very public way, he has acknowledged that some of what he said about me, my blog and his own public information officer 11 days after the crash was wrong.
In his column, Rubin now confirms that an anticipated press conference by Mayor Adrian Fenty completely stopped the information flow in the second hour of this developing incident. This, despite the public being hungry for details due to much of the region’s transit system shut down at rush hour and many people worried about the fate of their loved ones.
Chief Rubin also now admits it was wrong for the mayor and chief to provide interviews and information to CNN’s Larry King and national fire/EMS publications without also taking care of the local news media.
Above, Chief Dennis Rubin on WTOP Radio, July 2, 2009.
What Statter reported & the chief said in 2009
These same two issues were brought up in my TV and STATter911.com reports in the days immediately following the incident (here & here).
I also had many discussions about these concerns with the DC Fire & EMS Department’s media team of Deputy Chief Kenneth Crosswhite, Billy D. Hayes and Alan Etter and left a message on the chief’s cell phone. All of them heard an earful from me that Rubin and his command staff talked about the handling of the incident with FirefighterNation.com/ Fire Rescue Magazine, Firehouse.com, FireRescue1.com and JEMS.com, but were under orders to turn down interview requests with local reporters.
I know Mr. Statter had described that fact and that just simply isn’t true. The other side of it is, though, if we were to shoot from the hip, I think instead of being here today saying why did it take a bit to learn the number of folks, to have some notion as to what occurred here. Instead of that, I think we would be under the gun, why did you give us such inaccurate information?
I know there were some comments made about the number of cell telephone calls that were made. I never received a one from Mr. Statter and I know he is the person that’s complaining the most. But I would have to give us a very high mark, that of course is, the mayor’s management consequence team that worked at that event providing accurate timely and effective information.
Rubin now admits there was a 45-minute gap in the flow of information and that it was done because “the mayor’s office directed the fire department PIO team to prepare for a mayoral press conference.” If you look back at my reporting you will see I also wrote the order came from Mayor Adrian Fenty’s office but that the gap was about 70-minutes long.
We’re getting closer. Our only disagreement now is 1525-minutes and some specific instructions with that order.
Above, Chief Dennis Rubin with WUSA-TV photojournalist Keith Williams, July 2, 2009.
I reported the mayor’s office said there were to be no further interviews at the scene until Mayor Fenty speaks. Rubin said that was not correct and told my Channel 9 colleague Keith Williams right after the WTOP Radio appearance, “There were no restrictions or controls placed on fire and EMS by anyone.”
But Rubin’s own PIO at the time, Alan Etter, who was in the process of leaving the department, contradicted the chief. Here’s what I reported:
Etter confirmed, on the record, that it was accurate. Etter said at about 6:10 PM, 70-minutes after the crash was reported, he received a page from Mayor Adrian Fenty’s press office ordering that he give no further interviews about the collision. According to Etter, the page indicated Mayor Fenty would be speaking at 7:15 PM.
Until that page came Etter had worked very hard in making sure the local news media and the public were being informed about this important story. Then suddenly there was a news blackout along with later orders not to upstage the mayor with local interviews in the days following the crash.
The mayor and the fire chief talking with the press at the Metro crash scene from WashingtonPost.com.
In conclusion
For the record, we have never indicated the stopping of the information flow came on orders of Chief Rubin. It wasn’t his style of handling information at or following a major incident. But it certainly was the style of his boss, Mayor Fenty. The Washington Post made note of that two days after the Metro crash in an article by reporter Nikita Stewart titled, ”D.C. Mayor Tries Too Hard to Control the Message, Critics Say“.
In the old STATter911.com articles you will see there were other missteps in handling the media that day, including a bit of a heavy hand from the police department.
It’s sad that any of this even became an issue, because it distracted from the expert job Chief Rubin and the men and women of the department did that day in handling a very high profile and difficult mass casualty incident.
And a final word
When you read Chief Rubin’s article, which I urge you to do, you may note he has the Metro crash occurring a week after the date I am using. For the record, June 22, 2009 is accurate.
I can tell you even a small error involving details of a rail incident is very uncharacteristic of Dennis Rubin. During a panel discussion we both participated in at the National Fire Academy a number of years ago I just happened to mention the 1987 Chase, Maryland Amtrak collision. Off the top of his head he rattled off all of the pertinent facts and figures of that incident, including the exact date. Quite impressive. I believe Chief Rubin told me his dad was a railroad man.
One of the hard parts about being a firefighter today is that whether it’s an EMS run, a trip to the store for dinner or showing up at a fire, someone is there to record it for posterity. If it isn’t a fellow firefighter with a helmet-cam it’s a neighbor or passerby with a cell phone camera. And if you don’t do your job perfectly each time, you can be sure the time you screw up will be caught on video and shared for everyone to see and then comment.
Such is the case with this recent car fire video posted by PhillipsburgEms. This is something not likely to make TV news in most communities but is ready made for YouTube. In this case it catches a Phillipsburg, New Jersey firefighter’s frustration over standing there with an empty hose for longer than he would like. The firefighter yells to the pump operator, “Hey, what’s going on?”. He then says something else I can’t quite make out about the pump before putting down the nozzle and heading to see for himself what is causing the delay.
The camera also catches someone (not sure if it’s a civilian or firefighter) in shorts and no shirt helping to stretch out hose as the line is charged.
I can only imagine what the cameras would have caught if the digital age occurred back in the 70s when I was riding fire trucks. I don’t envy anyone who has to perform in front of the camera perfectly 24/7. Even when it was my job to be on camera every day, unless it was live, at least I was able to do re-takes.
This will be our the sixth year streaming the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation’s Memorial Weekend telecasts and we are grateful many, many other websites are doing the same. WUSA9.com is once again providing the live streaming. Saturday’s Candlelight Service begins at 6:30 PM EDT. Sunday’s Memorial Service starts at 10:00 AM EDT. See both telecasts via STATter911.com.
Please encourage your department and your local news media to also run the live streaming so that as many people as possible will see the tribute to the nation’s fallen firefighters.
In addition, there are many other ways to take part in Memorial Weekend even if you can’t join us in Emmitsburg. Here is a link that has all of the information you will need – http://weekend.firehero.org/creative/2012/ . Here are some of the highlights:
LIVE STREAMING
Be part of the FireHero Network and embed live streaming of Saturday’s Candlelight Service and Sunday’s Memorial Service on your website. And please encourage general news websites in your community to do the same. Click here for streaming information.
SOCIAL MEDIA
In addition, you will be able to follow the weekend events through social media. NFFF has a team of firefighters on campus in Emmitsburg to provide pictures, video and details throughout the weekend,
There are two new campaigns this year for firefighters and the public to show their support of the fallen on their Facebook pages. On Saturday, October 6 at 6:30 pm please “Light a Virtual Candle for a Fallen Firefighter.” And on Sunday, October 7 you can “Ring a Virtual Bell for a Fallen Firefighter.” All the details are available here:
There is now a webcam that gives you a view of the National Fallen Firefighters Memorial 24/7. It can be seen at http://firehero.org/camera.html.
IN YOUR COMMUNITY
The second annual Bells Across America for Fallen Firefighters is going strong and more departments and places of worship are signing on every day. Please continue to spread the word of this important program that encourages the public to pause and remember the firefighters who have died. http://bellsacrossamerica.com/
YOUTUBE
Over the weekend NFFF will be posting video remembrances of firefighters from their survivors. As always, there is a growing library of Memorial Weekend videos on FireHero TV, the NFFF YouTube channel http://www.firehero.tv.com.
MORE ON THE WEB
The Virtual Remembrance Banner is available for anyone to pay tribute to a fallen firefighter or share a special memory of Memorial Weekend. It’s a wonderful way for family, friends and others who can’t be in Emmitsburg to have a connection to the events. http://weekend.firehero.org/remembrance/banner.php
Departments and individuals can still add the National Fallen Firefighters Tribute Widget to their website, blog or Facebook page. Go to http://weekend.firehero.org/widget/ to copy and embed the widget.
Of course, webmaster Jenni McClelland will be constantly updating the Memorial Weekend website with fresh pictures and information at http://weekend.firehero.org/. And you will always find information about all of the programs of the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation at http://firehero.org.
It is a rare thing to find new technology that is not a double-edged sword. While it helps with one problem it often makes something else worse. We have seen it over and over again with social media and the Internet. And here may be another case.
Matt Chaban at the New York Observer tells us Internet sites that have cropped up in recent years to help New York’s Bravest get promoted may also be helping New York’s enemies do their dirty business. Chaban looks at sites like Lt.Questions.com, FireCaptainNYC.com and FireTestTaking.com and asks FDNY and terrorism experts about the information that people can get online:
While these sites are condoned by the Fire Department as useful study aides, all of them publish a number of sensitive documents that would be invaluable not only to would-be brass but also to anyone with the desire to do the city or its residents harm, from a terrorist cell to a disgruntled citizen. Among the documents the site makes available to anyone with an Internet connection are detailed plans and schematics for highly sensitive parts of the city’s infrastructure, the subway system, the airports, the electrical grid, and the sewer and gas systems, to name a few. There is an irony, perhaps, in the fact that such detailed intelligence enables an attacker to strike not only at innocent civilians but also the first responders rushing in to save them.
The Fire Department insists the materials are harmless, and that much of it has been available in various forms for decades. “I’ve asked around, and nobody seems to think there is anything very serious in there,” said FDNY spokesman Frank Gribbons.
Chaban reports that a second contact with the FDNY spokesman brought a different answer. This time Gribbons said department lawyers were asking the sites to take down the material.
Is this a real threat to the citizens of New York and the fireighters, police officers and EMS crews? I don’t know. The owners of the sites, all FDNY officers, believe that the information is out there anyway and that FDNY officials were informed before the websites began opertations.
Take the time to read the whole article and let me know what you think. I’m still digesting it all myself.
Previous STATter911.com coverage of this story here and here
As we’ve been reporting, there has been a good deal of controversy in Columbus, Mississippi over a Facebook post that resulted in the resignation of Firefighter Brad Alexander and the 30-day suspensions of two other firefighters and a cop. The post that caused all of this had been taken down from Alexander’s personal Facebook page and until now had not been part of the news coverage. Sarah Wilson at the Columbus Packet was able to track down the actual post and it was published this morning:
People never cease to amaze me. Mama yelling oh my baybee my baybee….Hey you stupid ass, where was babyeees mama at while your 2 year old was getting hit by a truck. Mama needs to have her guts cut so there wont be anymore babies. Freeloading ignorant woman
Lance Luckey, Damon Estes, Eric Minga and 12 others like this
The posting on Facebook came after Alexander responded to a child struck by a pickup truck on August 20th. According to the Columbus Packet, two-year-old Tyree Sparks Jr. was being watched by a family friend when he ran from the porch into the street and was hit. The boy recovered from relatively minor head injuries:
Shanta Henley, Tyree’s Aunt and Classie Craddieth, his grandmother raced from another neighbors home across Military Rd. as soon as they saw the commotion. Henley and Craddieth held the boys hands to calm him until emergency responders arrived minutes later. Sparks’ Aunt, Shanta Henley,accompanied Sparks in the ambulance and Craddieth and another Aunt, Shameka Nickelson, followed them to Baptist Hospital.
They said that the mother of the child,Terrance Henley, was actually on her way back from Columbus High School , where she is a Senior, when the accident occurred and was extremely emotional after she learned her child had been struck.
Much of the controversy stems around the suspensions for Firefighter Damon Estes, Firefighter Eric Minga and Police Officer Lance Luckey who hit “like” after reading the post. Columbus, Mississippi does not have a social media policy.
According to Wilson, there is no comment from city officials about the identities of the other 12 people who clicked “like” for this now infamous post.
We first heard from our friend Curt Varone about a sheriff’s department civilian employee in Virginia who lost his job after hitting “Like” on a Facebook post. Now we have learned the discipline for two firefighters and a cop from Columbus, Mississipi who clicked “Like” on a Facebook posting in August by now former Columbus firefighter Brad Alexander. Firefighters Damon Estes and Erik Minga and police officer Lance Luckey were each suspended for 30-days following an executive session of the mayor and city council.
As we first told you yesterday, Brad Alexander resigned after 12-years on the department. He also apologized on his Facebook page (see above) for a post he wrote voicing his frustration and questioning the whereabouts of the mother after a two-year-old child had been struck by a car. So far we have not seen the exact content of the offending post.
The Dispatch reports the council was split in its vote with some worried about this being a free speech issue. The City of Columbus does not specific policy covering Facebook comments.
The post reportedly attracted several comments along with multiple “likes” before it was brought to the attention of Alexander’s battalion chief and fire chief Ken Moore. Alexander and Moore met with mayor Robert Smith and members of the city council last Monday to discuss the post and potential disciplinary action.
The events unfolded in executive session but multiple sources said both firefighters Estes and Minga wrote letters of apology to the mayor and council. Those sources also claim Moore recommended 30-day suspensions for the two.
Chief of Police Selvain McQueen also reportedly recommended a 30-day suspension for Luckey. Luckey reportedly voiced his objections to the suspension, telling the mayor and council that he read the update from his cell phone and did not see the entire status update or the comments left underneath by various Facebook users.
Above is an apology currently on the wall of the Facebook page of Brad Alexander, a 12-year member of Mississippi’s Columbus Fire & Rescue Department along with 19 messages of support . Alexander, a former rookie of the year for the department, resigned because of a post he made on Facebook that has since been taken down. Sarah Fowler from the The Dispatch reports two other firefighters and a cop who all ”liked” the comment face disciplinary action. The incident is expected to be part of an executive session for the mayor and city council tonight:
The original post has since been taken down but Alexander reportedly made statements regarding a call where a 2-year-old child was hit by a car. In the post, Alexander allegedly stated the child was unattended and questioned the location of the child’s mother.
Alexander reflected fondly on his time with the department and had a message for the citizens he swore to protect.
“Any citizens of the citizens of Columbus should never question the Fire Department’s ability, it’s the best in the state,” he said.
This is apparently video shot a little earlier than the previous one we shared with you from Friday’s tanker crash and burn near Liberty Township, Pennsylvania (Tioga County). That video, posted here very early Sunday morning, and this video, were taken by Lonny Frost, who appears to shoot and report a fair amount of fire activity and other news in the region.
From remarks via Facebook on STATter911.com and with this video, Lonny Frost is not happy with some of the comments made by our KICs (keyboard incident commanders). Here’s what he wrote on Facebook:
I cannot believe people like all you putting down departments after viewing a 6 minute video clip that was taken some time after the tanker crash and fire. How rude to think all you are better qualified than anyone from Tioga County. Look into the facts of our county’s emergency workers, the hours, training and how many lives they have saved. Ignorance is all I am reading on this STAT911. A bunch of firemen sitting around bashing another before they even know what agency is already on scene and focusing on one firefighter, whom many of you believe is not doing his job correctly. Again that is your opinion. I dont mind comments or suggestions, but when did other firemen tear others apart? I thought there was a botherhood in firefighting. You are there to give advice, point out o ther possible solutions in future cases like the one you are negatively attacking. That fireman was never in any dange, to himself or others. Had anyone been in the “wrong” they would of been comfronted and removed. I have seen many of these companies save lives from situations others would not even enter. How aweful to have such ruthless and invaluable comments. Thanks for sharing your ignorance with your fellow self righteous critics.
For a while after this comment the video in question was made “private” on YouTube. As of this writing it’s back up.
With the posting of this latest video, Lonny Frost added these comments to the description on YouTube:
If you are going to write mean spirited comments about the volunteer fire departments, I will simply block you. If you want to post suggestions or polite informative statements or comments please do so. As a correspondent reporter these clips are posted to let local people see a glimspe of what occured. It is not for some of you to use to bash me or the firemen & women who volunteer to help those in our county.
Lonny Frost is far from alone in criticizing the comments that are posted on STATter911.com or even criticizing me for providing this forum. There are a lot of people who feel this way. I understand why they feel the way they do. I even respect such opinions and don’t take any criticism of the comments on this site, the site itself or of me personally. I try to learn from it all. And, by the way, if you look at what Lonny Frost is saying, even if you think he is greatly misguided, it’s hard not to note that his heart is in the right place by standing up for firefighters (that’s more than some people believe about the publisher of this rag).
I have dealt with people who are offended by the comments section since almost day one of STATter911.com more than five-years-ago. Some of the complaints came from my closest and oldest friends in the fire service. I listened to what they all had to say and made the decision to keep the comments and censor as little as possible. I continue to stand by that decision and amazingly my friends still stand by me. Not that it doesn’t cause me great pain at times when I see personal bashing and comments that are more vindictive than constructive. To me, the forum works best when there is an adult discussion of issues and tactics with the egos left at the door (I know … I’m a dreamer).
In this particular incident in Tioga County, the comments came in rather fast and furious. The overall theme was one questioning what many believe are serious safety issues with this operation. While some said it more nicely than others, the comments almost all were about the same concerns.
As regular readers know I leave all of the commenting about firegound tactics and safety issues to others. But I do have some general observations about all of this.
First of all, I believe it would be nicer and more civilized if we could just tell people directly our concerns in a more private way. But the cameras everywhere, digital nature of life in the 2000s seems to have changed that dynamic forever. It isn’t just the fire service. In almost everything today we all have to deal with the instant analysis of our actions, whether it’s because of something we innocently wrote on Facebook or the video our neighbor took of us walking around our backyard in our underwear.
The question I toss out to the crowd is this: Are you being more of a “brother” by not pointing out an important safety lapse in one of these videos so you won’t hurt that brother’s feelings or is brotherhood making your thoughts clear on an actions you see that could injure or kill your brother firefighters?
Those who have heard me speak or read my columns about social media the last few years know that I rarely fail to mention words of wisdom from two people, Gerald Baron and Bill Boyd. It was Baron’s book Now Is Too Late2 that put everything I learned as a reporter about news coverage and the impact of the Internet and social media into perspective. The book also took me into the world of Bill Boyd, a fire chief in Washington State.
Since reading the book I’ve gotten to know both men and stay current on their thoughts of the evolution of social media in the public safety/ emergency management arena through emails, phone conversations, Tweets, Facebook posts and their blogs (Bill’s It’s Not My Emergency and Gerald’s Crisis Blogger).
Bill Boyd is one of a very small number of fire service leaders who “gets it” when it comes to the crucial role of social media in emergency management. More important, Chief Boyd is constantly looking at some of the every day practices of the fire service and public safety and how they must evolve to include social media, not only to get the job done, but to stay relevant to the people you serve.
If you are a leader who is still hesitant about making SM a part of your department, or one who is looking for guidance and trying to understand what you got yourself into with Facebook, Twitter and all of the other platforms, let Chief Bill Boyd be your guide. Chief Boyd, along with Gerald Baron and Agincourt Strategies, have produced this video training series to give you what you need to know to understand how social media is changing emergency management and how you can leverage its power to protect both the public and your agency’s reputation.
I am honored to team up with these two as part of STATter911 Communications continuing efforts to help fire service leaders and others communicate effectively, whether it is part of the daily routine of serving the public or during a critical incident. In addition to these videos, STATter911.com will be running guest columns on social media from both Chief Bill Boyd and Gerald Baron.
The man who convinced Channel 9 in Washington in 1985 to take a chance on a radio reporter with no TV experience had some important words of advice for the rookie TV reporter. Mike Buchanan said you can never go wrong with a story about kids, animals or the Washington Redskins. While none of those were necessarily topics I wanted to cover, the advice from one of the best TV journalists in the country was extremely accurate.
The same formula (possibly minus the Redskins) seems to apply to news on the Internet and social media. By now you probably have seen the images in the video above. This clip happens to be from a TV news story, but people in that newsroom most certainly first saw the pictures come across their computer screen or smart phone. How many other stories do you think that TV news operation ran from Santa Rosa de Temuco, Chile in the past five years? My guess is none. Local TV news doesn’t do a lot of stories from South America.
Dogs, especially puppies, are big on the Internet just as they are on TV. If you can apply what we think is a human characteristic to that animal (especially dogs) you will have a winner. How can you not be touched by the story behind the series of images taken on Thursday by photographer J. Monsalve.
A heroic mother dog saved her 10-day-old puppies from a house fire in Santa Rosa de Temuco, Chile on Thursday. Sensing the danger to her babies, she picked the pups up in her mouth and moved them from the burning house to the safety of the nearby fire truck. She then gently placed the pups on the steps of the fire-truck as firefighters fought the blaze.
According to the various news reports about the rescue, one of the puppies later died of burns.
It is hard to deny it’s a beautiful story of a mother’s love. You will get no argument from me.
But would this story go viral in such a big way if it was about a human mother saving her children or a firefighter saving kids? I think not.
First of all, a photographer would have to get the pictures without someone in fire, EMS, law enforcement or the general public blocking the shot because they believe it is an invasion of privacy or a HIPAA violation. Then you would have the outrage by many that the pictures are too graphic.
So, let’s forget pictures of the event for a moment. Just hearing about that story of a dog rescuing all her puppies from a fire is one you will likely remember, tell your friends about and share on Facebook. You likely won’t forget this story.
This little picture of Beth Childers (on the left) is the only one I could find on the Internet. Shouldn’t her image and story be as well known as the dog from Chile?
My question is this, how many people in the general public or in the fire service know the name Beth Childers? If you don’t know the name, how many remember her story from Alabama just a month ago?
My goal is not to criticize anyone for liking the images and the story from Chile. I was touched by them too. I just think it would be nice to put the same effort we do in celebrating the human characteristics we find in animals into celebrating the human characteristics we find in some of the extraordinary humans among us. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if Beth Childers story went viral too?
A must read update: The Facebook post from Columbus, MS that caused veteran firefighter to resign. Three others get long suspensions for hitting “Like”.
23 commentsAs we’ve been reporting, there has been a good deal of controversy in Columbus, Mississippi over a Facebook post that resulted in the resignation of Firefighter Brad Alexander and the 30-day suspensions of two other firefighters and a cop. The post that caused all of this had been taken down from Alexander’s personal Facebook page and until now had not been part of the news coverage. Sarah Wilson at the Columbus Packet was able to track down the actual post and it was published this morning:
The posting on Facebook came after Alexander responded to a child struck by a pickup truck on August 20th. According to the Columbus Packet, two-year-old Tyree Sparks Jr. was being watched by a family friend when he ran from the porch into the street and was hit. The boy recovered from relatively minor head injuries:
Reporter Wilson writes that relatives of the boy are quite upset about the post and are considering legal action. Also, a group of citizens are organizing a fundraiser to assist the Facebook 4, as they have been dubbed.
Much of the controversy stems around the suspensions for Firefighter Damon Estes, Firefighter Eric Minga and Police Officer Lance Luckey who hit “like” after reading the post. Columbus, Mississippi does not have a social media policy.
According to Wilson, there is no comment from city officials about the identities of the other 12 people who clicked “like” for this now infamous post.
