Black Firefighters Ask Feds to Investigate Hiring at Chicago Fire Department
via Chicago Tribune
“An organization representing African-American firefighters and paramedics on Thursday asked the U.S. Department of Justice to expand its probe of the Chicago Police Department to include the Fire Department, saying hiring and disciplinary practices there are unfair.
The African-American Firefighters & Paramedics League of Chicago also demanded that Mayor Rahm Emanuel dismiss Fire Commissioner Jose Santiago, alleging that Santiago has failed to investigate claims that minority firefighters are disciplined and demoted unjustly.
“We have to address the fact that there have been so few minority hirings on the job,” league President Gregory Boggs, a lieutenant emergency medical technician, said at a news conference. “We want the Justice Department to come in before any new hiring is done. African-Americans are being disciplined much more often than anyone else. We’re calling on the mayor to do something about this.”
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