A top-class FDNY chief was denied promotion because he refused to avoid the racial accusations he sent stating the department’s diversity efforts, he claims in a First Amendment lawsuit.
FDNY Commissioner Daniel Nigaro reportedly served as Deputy Assistant Head of Operations Michael F. Criticizing reform proposals brought by a protracted court battle with the Vulcan Society, a fraternal group of black FDNY firefighters, he sent missiles to The Chief Leader newspaper.
“Return. . . Should say ‘I’m not the same man I was,’ “Gala According to his Brooklyn Federal Court lawsuit.
In return, Gala will be promoted as assistant head of the department, he said in his legal filing.
In the letters of the chief leader, Gala was responding to complaints from the Vulcan Society that the FDNY had discriminated against blacks and Latino in their hiring practices.
Gala wrote in a 2008 letter, “I am tired of hearing black and female firefighters earned their positions in this department or who have risen in rank based on their qualifications and still condemn the same system . ” Editor, one of at least two authors who used to run in a civil service newspaper.
“God started an FDNY white fire association to anyone. Imagine the days of the field would be near race-buyers,” he wrote in a July 2007 letter.
In 2014, the city agreed to pay $ 98 million to candidates passed because of alleged racial bias.
Gala Jr., the father of the disgraced former EMT Robert Gala, claims the letters were constitutionally protected from free speech and refused to be withdrawn. He is asking for unspecified damages and wants to order his promotion to a judge.
FDNY denied that Gala’s promotion rests on withdrawal. If the city’s attorney wrote in court papers, even though Gala’s allegations were true, the department is “entitled to judgment as a matter of law”.
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