Report: Retired FDNY Dispatcher Created Racially Charged Blog
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- A retired FDNY dispatcher was in the headlines Sunday over a blog that reportedly included numerous racial slurs and rants.
Edmund Schneider, 71, was the subject of an unflattering New York Post article Sunday for his FDNYRetiree.com blog.
The blog features an American flag, along with patches and helmets from local fire and police departments, and offers an assortment of 9/11 and fire department-related merchandise for sale.
But the blog posts on the site were what caught the newspaper's attention. The newspaper indicated that Schneider, who left New York City 23 years ago, used the N-word and other racial slurs, as well as slurs for Muslims and gay men.
The newspaper reported the blog also accused African-American woman 911 dispatchers of "destroying" the "mostly white male" FDNY dispatch force, called "family" something "foreign to the average (African-American)" and referred to gay marriage as "fruitcake marriage."
A post available on the blog as of Sunday referred to President Barack Obama as "a Marxist Muslim bent on destroying the United States of America." Another castigated Obama for awarding a bronze star to an Air Force captain who produced "a PowerPoint presentation to help American troops respect Islam and Muslims," which the blog characterized as "giving comfort to the enemy."
Schneider, now of Venice, Fla., defended his views when confronted to by the newspaper, calling his views "all opinion… based on fact" rather than "hate speech." But the FDNY told the newspaper the blog had been referred to the city Law Department.
The report about Schneider's blog comes on the heels of a series of reports of FDNY EMS employees misusing social media.
Last week, the Post reported some emergency medical responders have been photographing people who have died or found themselves injured under violent and gruesome circumstances, and placing them on social media pages or "gore books."
In response, state Sen. Diane Savino (D-Staten Island) told CBS 2 she intends to punish those who exploit patients and victims. Savino wants first responders -- not only EMTs but cops and firefighters, too -- to go to jail it they take pictures for personal enjoyment.
The week before, FDNY EMS Lt. Timothy Dluhos was exposed in the Post for questionable Twitter messages, and the newspaper reported he also posted humiliating pictures of patients.
Dluhos had recently tweeted about the controversial police shooting of armed teenager Kimani Gray, saying "He was a perp & died like a perp, Oh, well."
A short time before that, Fire Commissioner Sal Cassano's son, Joe, resigned from EMS after sending ugly tweets about the poor, blacks, Jews and women.
The Vulcan Society, a fraternal order of black firefighters, has called for Dluhos' termination. The society also 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.
The NYPD late last month issued an order to "demonstrate professionalism" when using Facebook, Twitter and other social media, and the FDNY reportedly may adopt a similar order.
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