Tyrone N. Butts
APE Reporter
3
Slurs on Fire Dept. radio to get offenders fired
Using the Chicago Fire Department's radio to spew racial and ethnic hatred will be a "fireable offense," Mayor Daley and Fire Commissioner James Joyce declared Wednesday after two more embarrassing incidents reopened decades-old wounds.
At 7:34 p.m. Tuesday, shortly after City Council Police Committee Chairman Isaac Carothers (29th) made a live television appearance to discuss the epidemic, somebody got on the fire radio to say, "The n-ggers on the City Council suck." The statement was repeated four times on thr
e radio frequencies.
The other incident took place at 5:59 a.m. Wednesday and included only one word: "n-gger."
Joyce said his investigation into the latest and prior i
ncid
ents is being hampered by a posting on an underground Web site popular w
ith firefighters. It instructs them how to use their hand-held radios without sending out an electronic identifier that can be traced to an individual user.
"That's very disturbing to me. It angers me.... That is what we're up against," Joyce said.
With five embarrassing incidents this month and no end in sight, the stage was set for minority aldermen to vent their anger -- and unload on Joyce -- during a City Council hearing called to discuss the latest outbreak of racial intolerance.
The hearing reopened all of the old racial wounds -- from claims that the Chicago Fire Department was a "good old white boys network" still 70 percent white overall and even whiter in its top
brass, to reminders that the firefighters union is led by a man who once appeared in blackface.
"I went home last night and checked all of the batteries in my smoke detector,"
said
Ald. Billy
Ocasio (26th).
Firefighters were described as spoiled "brats" with too much time on their hands, and Ald. Wi
lliam Beavers (7th) resurrected demands for an eight-hour workday.
Ald. Ed Smith (28th) even went so far as to predict a racial "uprising" if the incidents continue. He claimed firefighters are more inclined to "chop down walls and destroy houses" when fighting fires in black neighborhoods.
"They're saying, 'Look at our numbers. ... We can call them anything we want. We can go into the neighborhood and treat them as if they're animals, and nothing is going to be done about it,' " Smith said.
It's not all right anymore. On Wednesday, Joyce served notice that future incidents would be a "firea
ble offense." It's not prohibited by the firefighters contract, which spells out disciplinary procedures but does not outline specific punishment, officials said.
Daley backe
d his em
battled fire commis
sioner, even before learning about the fourth and fifth incidents. He was only talking about the third embarrassment, where an unidentified male voice rattled off at least eight slurs in
retaliation for the 90- and 30-day suspensions that followed the first racist episode.
"He did it to embarrass his fellow firemen -- those that lost their lives -- and the citizens of Chicago. He should stand up and have enough nerve to say, 'I did it,' and he should take the ultimate consequences.... This is not acceptable," Daley said.
***********
You white people in Chicago need to move to God's Country and just let your n-ggers stew in their own juice.
T.N.B.
Slurs on Fire Dept. radio to get offenders fired
Using the Chicago Fire Department's radio to spew racial and ethnic hatred will be a "fireable offense," Mayor Daley and Fire Commissioner James Joyce declared Wednesday after two more embarrassing incidents reopened decades-old wounds.
At 7:34 p.m. Tuesday, shortly after City Council Police Committee Chairman Isaac Carothers (29th) made a live television appearance to discuss the epidemic, somebody got on the fire radio to say, "The n-ggers on the City Council suck." The statement was repeated four times on thr
e radio frequencies.
The other incident took place at 5:59 a.m. Wednesday and included only one word: "n-gger."
Joyce said his investigation into the latest and prior i
ncid
ents is being hampered by a posting on an underground Web site popular w
ith firefighters. It instructs them how to use their hand-held radios without sending out an electronic identifier that can be traced to an individual user.
"That's very disturbing to me. It angers me.... That is what we're up against," Joyce said.
With five embarrassing incidents this month and no end in sight, the stage was set for minority aldermen to vent their anger -- and unload on Joyce -- during a City Council hearing called to discuss the latest outbreak of racial intolerance.
The hearing reopened all of the old racial wounds -- from claims that the Chicago Fire Department was a "good old white boys network" still 70 percent white overall and even whiter in its top
brass, to reminders that the firefighters union is led by a man who once appeared in blackface.
"I went home last night and checked all of the batteries in my smoke detector,"
said
Ald. Billy
Ocasio (26th).
Firefighters were described as spoiled "brats" with too much time on their hands, and Ald. Wi
lliam Beavers (7th) resurrected demands for an eight-hour workday.
Ald. Ed Smith (28th) even went so far as to predict a racial "uprising" if the incidents continue. He claimed firefighters are more inclined to "chop down walls and destroy houses" when fighting fires in black neighborhoods.
"They're saying, 'Look at our numbers. ... We can call them anything we want. We can go into the neighborhood and treat them as if they're animals, and nothing is going to be done about it,' " Smith said.
It's not all right anymore. On Wednesday, Joyce served notice that future incidents would be a "firea
ble offense." It's not prohibited by the firefighters contract, which spells out disciplinary procedures but does not outline specific punishment, officials said.
Daley backe
d his em
battled fire commis
sioner, even before learning about the fourth and fifth incidents. He was only talking about the third embarrassment, where an unidentified male voice rattled off at least eight slurs in
retaliation for the 90- and 30-day suspensions that followed the first racist episode.
"He did it to embarrass his fellow firemen -- those that lost their lives -- and the citizens of Chicago. He should stand up and have enough nerve to say, 'I did it,' and he should take the ultimate consequences.... This is not acceptable," Daley said.
***********
You white people in Chicago need to move to God's Country and just let your n-ggers stew in their own juice.
T.N.B.