Fire Law Blog Fire Service and Public Safety Legal Issues Blog by Curt Varone
Four Pompano Beach fire recruits are off the job following an investigation into a noose found draped over the seat of the academy’s only black recruit. The incident occurred at the Pompano Beach Fire Training Center on the recruits’ last day of training, June 7, 2017, but was not immediately reported.
The black recruit, Vilbert Green, saw the noose, took a photo of it, but did not report the incident. He later showed the photo to another firefighter who brought it to the fire chief’s attention on July 26, 2017. Four recruits who were in the room at the time the noose was placed were suspended while the matter was investigated.
Following the investigation Kerop Berberian, Geandy Perez and Austin Sovay opted to resign while Matthew Reilly was fired. The investigation concluded that Perez was responsible for tying the noose but the others failed to tell the truth about the incident. None of the four owned up to placing the noose at Green’s seat.
Pompano Beach Fire Chief John Jurgle told the Sun Sentinal “I heard the word ‘joke’ a lot and I said, ‘Explain the joke to me, explain how this is funny.’ They haven’t been able to do that.”
The Sun Sentinel reached out to the former recruits for comment. Sovay told a reporter “It wasn’t a noose. It was a fishing knot.” Berberian said “people were let go for the wrong reasons.”
