Six Miami firefighters are out of a job after hanging a noose over a black firefighter's family photo. And that's not all they did.
An internal investigation began following a Sept. 9th incident, the Miami Herald reported. Police were initially called to a station house on a report of vandalism.
Investigators eventually determined that firefighters themselves were responsible for “sexually explicit and racially offensive conduct” and should be terminated, according to a statement from Miami City Manager Daniel Alfonso.
The six firefighters — William W. Bryson, Kevin Meizoso, David Rivera, Justin Rumbaugh, Harold Santana, and Alejandro Sese — allegedly defaced the family photos belonging to a black lieutenant, taking the pictures of his wife, children and his mother out of their picture frames and drew “graphic and obscene phallic renderings” on the images, before returning them to their frames.
Under the city's civil service procedures, the fired firefighters can challenge this.
In a Statement from the Miami Firefighters' Association, Union President Freddy Delgado says, "We expect all of our members to be provided a safe, comfortable workplace and also to fair and complete investigations and just discipline when it's warranted."
Delgado also said that the union has “not yet been provided with all the information that the city relied upon in making the decisions it did today.”