Six New Jersey Firefighters Under Investigation
Six New Jersey firefighters have been suspended or removed as an investigation is underway into allegations of sexual harassment of a female firefighter, sending threatening text messages, and forcing of a vehicle off a road.
The firefighters are all volunteers from the town of Hammonton, and reportedly all of the conduct involved members of the department as perpetrators and victims. According to Mayor Steve DiDonato, “It was all internal — volunteers allegedly doing this to other volunteers.” In other words, the public was not involved.
Pressofatlanticcity.com is following the story and quoted a former assistant chief from the department, Sam Sofia, as saying: “It’s ridiculous that it comes to this. … Some of the guys mentioned in your article I’m not very fond of … but a man is innocent until proven guilty. I don’t think they should be dragged around town and ridiculed for things nobody knows if they did.”
The mayor and the town council are overseeing the investigation. More on the story.
True or False:
1. Boys will be boys.
2. Girls shouldn’t be firefighters
Answers:
1. True, although misbehavior is gonna bite them in the butt eventually.
2. False, and the sooner people learn it — especially those in the fire service — the sooner we can get back to rebuilding our collective tarnished reputation.
Sexual harassment is just plain stupid, whether you try to disguise it as “hazing’ or “flirting” or come right out and label it as discrimination.
The women are in firefighting to stay, and it would behoove ALL of us to remember that the person pulling our ass out of the fire next time might be one of the ladies.