DC Fire Spokesman Lon Walls calls firefighters' protest of Chief Ellerbe a 'racist act'. Posts thoughts on Facebook & Twitter.
Last night's story on order over firefighters appearing at Mayor Vincent Gray's speech
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There is another aspect of the ongoing dispute between DC Fire & EMS Department Chief Kenneth Ellerbe and many of his firefighters. After firefighters wearing the banned for work DCFD logos walked out of Chief Ellerbe's speech on January 24, his spokesman, Lon Walls, wrote about it on Twitter and Facebook. What he wrote is the subject of an article today by Andrea Noble in The Washington Times:
Mr. Walls, in one of at least three separate comments on the subject posted on his personal Facebook and Twitter accounts, described the walkout as a “racist act.”
“Just witnessed a blatant display of racism and disrespect shown to an African American leader,” Mr. Walls wrote in a Twitter post on Jan. 24, shortly after Chief Ellerbe’s address concluded.
In a subsequent post, Mr. Walls referred Twitter followers to his Facebook page, where he linked to a news story about the walkout and wrote that “the response depicted in the news story was the most blatant, ignorant and racist public display of disrespect I have ever seen.”
The walkout consisted mostly but not exclusively of white firefighters.
Asked Monday to verify the authenticity of the accounts, Mr. Walls noted that the comments were made on his personal, rather than government-related, accounts.
