Federal judge rips FDNY members for heckling Letitia James with boos, 'Trump!' chants, says incident is about 'race'

In the wake of New York City Fire Department members heckling state Attorney General Letitia James last month with boos and "Trump!" chants, U.S. District Court Judge Nicholas Garaufis said the incident wasn't about politics but about race, the New York Daily News reported.

“I’ve lived in New York City all my life. I know what the problem is. And believe me, front and center is what happened the other day," Garaufis said in reference to the heckling incident, the paper noted. "This doesn’t have to do with politics; this has to do with race."

What's the background?

James was booed as she walked to the podium to speak at a March 8 FDNY promotion ceremony at the Christian Cultural Center's Brooklyn Campus. James told the not-too-happy-to-see-her firefighters, "Oh, come on, we're in a house of God."

When they didn't stop, James motioned with her hands and said "simmer down" — but soon the firefighters began chanting, "Trump! Trump! Trump!"

New York Attorney General Letitia James booed in New York Cityyoutu.be

The New York Post reported that FDNY Chief of Department John Hodges in response "fired off an email to other agency honchos warning a reckoning led by the department’s Bureau of Investigation and Trials was coming over the chorus of boos and chants of 'Trump' that James received at Thursday’s event."

"BITS is investigating this, so they will figure out who the members are,” Hodges wrote in an email to FDNY leadership, according to the Post, adding that "I recommend they come forward. I have been told by the commissioner it will be better for them if they come forward, and we don’t have to hunt them down."

The heckling presumably had to do with James targeting former President Donald Trump in a civil fraud case that resulted in an over $450 million penalty Trump was supposed to pony up last week or risk James seizing his properties. But a New York appellate court at the 11th hour ruled that Trump instead could post a $175 million bond — which he did April 1 — as the appeal process plays out.

It's worth noting that James' political campaign for the AG chair focused on her insistence that she would go after Trump.

What else?

Garaufis' "this has to do with race" declaration directed toward the FDNY was part of his reaction to a complaint from the Vulcan Society of Black firefighters, which is in the midst of a civil rights settlement with the department that Garaufis is overseeing, the Daily News said.

Vulcan Society President Regina Wilson told the judge at a March 14 status conference that the FDNY members heckling James demonstrates a racist culture at the the department, the Daily News added: “I don’t know if you had an opportunity to just see the vile nature of these members even when we were at Christian Cultural Center where they started booing and saying ‘Trump, Trump Trump,’ while Letitia James was at the podium. This behavior is who this department is. Not all of them, but a large portion of them. So when black people go to work and have to deal with this, and you don’t get any help or support really from the department, it’s horrific.”

In response, Garaufis demanded that FDNY Commissioner Laura Kavanagh and New York City's Corporation Counsel Sylvia Hinds-Radix appear before him at the next status conference in the case in May to explain why it’s taking so long for the department to answer equal opportunity complaints, the Daily News noted.

How are observers reacting?

About 1,200 comments already have been posted under a Fox News story about Garaufis' "race" slap-down that Yahoo News published Tuesday — and many of them weren't happy. Here's a sampling:

• "When all else fails, race is the answer," one commenter wrote. "It's possible people just don't like her or what she did or didn't do or how she did it or whatever simply because they don't like her as a person. To blame the dislike on race is itself [racist] against those who are upset, but that's the way it's done today."
• "Has to do with free speech, judge. Or can you read peoples' minds. The beginning of the thought police," another commenter pondered.
• "James is all about lawfare against Trump. It’s blatantly obvious. That is why so many people dislike her," another commenter stated. "She earned it."
• "Why is it when someone disagrees with policies or decisions of the current administration it always about race or a threat to democracy?" another commenter wondered. "This had nothing to do with race."
• "The race card yet again. Over and over it's played. This was about politics. and they tuned it into race," another commenter declared.
• "Free speech is our right whether the judge likes it or not," another commenter stated.

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