A New York City firefighter was yanked from his Queens firehouse and suspended after he shared a sick photo of a naked black man sitting on George Floyd’s head with his fellow Bravest, FDNY officials said Friday.
The firefighter, who was not named, was suspended around June 5, shortly after the image surfaced on a group chat site used by members of Engine 303 in Jamaica, Queens, sources with knowledge of the case said.
The image was an altered version of a picture that captured white Minneapolis cop Derek Chauvin kneeling on Floyd’s neck on May 25 for nearly eight minutes while the pinned black man pleaded for air.
Chauvin is now facing murder charges in Floyd’s death.
In the image posted in the group chat, Chauvin’s body is gone and a burly, tattooed black man is in his place sitting on Floyd’s body, his genitalia resting on the dead man’s face.
“Too soon?” the firefighter wrote when he posted the mock image onto the station house’s group chat.
A complaint was made about the offensive image to the FDNY’s Bureau and Investigations and Trials, which opened a probe.
After the 46-year-old Floyd’s death, anti-police brutality protests broke out across the country and rocked New York City, where rogue looters clashed with police and ransacked stores.
An FDNY spokesman confirmed the firefighter from Engine 303, known as the “Princeton St. Tigers” firehouse, was transferred out and suspended.
This is not the first time that a group chat landed firefighters in trouble.
In 2018, firefighters at Engine 309/Ladder 159 in Flatlands, Brooklyn, were accused of creating a group text site they called the “F— Shop” to share photos of their privates, usually positioned by unsuspecting and sleeping members’ faces.
One of their victims was Firefighter Raheem Hassan, who later sued the FDNY for forcing him to undergo 12 years of harassment by his co-workers at Engine 309.
When the group chat and the abuse against Hassan was revealed, FDNY Commissioner Daniel Nigro cleared out Engine 309, nicknamed “The Friendly Firehouse,” transferring six officers and two firefighters to other commands.