A Black EMT filed a complaint in Brooklyn, N.Y., after a firefighter shouted a racial insult at her while the two were on duty.
According to reports, rescue teams were scrambling to get to Starrett City last week, where thousands of pedestrians were left without power due to a blackout, when a “tense discussion broke out.”
The heated argument took place between the EMS crew and firefighters after a call had been made. That’s when the discussion allegedly boiled over, and a white firefighter told the Black EMT, “Just do your job, you Black b—-,” the Daily News reported.
The EMT filed a formal complaint a day later with the department’s Equal Employment Opportunity.
However, the firefighter from Engine Co. 290, remained on active as of Friday nearly a week after the verbal attack.
A spokeswoman from the department, on Friday said, in a statement that, “A complaint has been filed with the EEO office and an investigation is opened.”
Though, the numbers speak for themselves. A data map revealed that males dominate the EMS profession in the U.S., accounting for 83.9 percent of the industry. Only 8.3 percent of workers are Black.
Black firefighters experience prejudice in their profession as well. Just two months ago, a Black firefighter in Oakland had been on duty preventing wildfires from starting when 911 received a call about “a suspicious” man in the backyard.
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Kevin Moore was inspecting the backyard of a home, when a resident sent the Oakland police footage from their home security camera. The footage showed the firefighter ringing the doorbell.
And when Moore returned to the home the following week for further inspections, he was met with a cellphone camera and demands to fork over “identification” by the resident.
“People need to know that minorities are treated differently in this country,” Megan Bryan, a colleague of Moore, told The New York Times.
