Vulcan Society Wants FDNY EMT Fired Following Series Of 'Racist' Tweets
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- A veteran of the FDNY has been suspended and the association representing black emergency medical technicians and firefighters says he should be fired.
It is the latest controversy involving a Twitter tirade by a member of the fire service.
EMS Lt. Timothy Dluhos reportedly broke down and cried when he was confronted by the New York Post about the tweets. But he was not so open when CBS 2 came to his Staten Island home on Monday, reported Jessica Schneider.
"Step off the property, please, before I call the police," he said.
Meanwhile, leaders of the Vulcan Society, a fraternal organization of black firefighters, are now calling for the ouster of Dluhos after the Post exposed his questionable Twitter messages, CBS 2's Tony Aiello reported.
"We think he should be fired. Unquestionably, we think someone with these types of views, with these types of attitudes, should not be employed by the New York City Fire Department," said the Vulcan Society's Paul Washington.
Days ago, Dluhos tweeted about the controversial police shooting of armed teenager Kimani Gray, saying "He was a perp & died like a perp, Oh, well."
Another message about Mayor Michael Bloomberg read: "That's how King Jew sees it. Ban all guns & shootings will go down in NYC. But it's the criminals w/the guns."
Dluhos' Twitter icon featured a picture of Adolf Hitler. He recently tweeted that a gold Nazi-era pin with a German U-boat and a swastika is "my most prized artifact."
Just a week ago, Fire Commissioner Sal Cassano's son, Joe, resigned from EMS after sending ugly tweets about the poor, blacks, Jews and women.
The Vulcan Society leadership said the two cases expose a larger problem of institutional racism.
"The department right now is not having a grip on it, and the public right now is viewing things in the department that have not been exposed, especially when you're talking about race and gender," said Regina Wilson of the Vulcan Society.
But Mayor Bloomberg said ugly social media messages from two members should not be held against the entire FDNY.
"To blast them and to insinuate that they are something they're not, that they're racist or homophobic or whatever the case may be, I think is just an outrage. That's not my experience," Bloomberg said.
The mayor said he doesn't understand why people don't think before they tweet and warned city workers anything they post on social media could come back to haunt them.
Dluhos works at EMS Station 57 in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn. He has been suspended for 30 days without pay while the FDNY investigates, and his continued employment is under review.
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