News report: 9 ex-felons are FDNY probationary firefighters
Susan Edelman at the New York Post has broken so many stories about FDNY and particularly various issues surrounding recruits that they should all just save time and introduce Edelman to everyone at the beginning of a new class.
Edleman’s latest story shows how convicted felons with New York State Department of Corrections certificates of good conduct are eligible to be firefighters. You can get that certificate if you have two or more felony convictions and have stayed out of trouble for three to five years.
The class that graduated November 2, according to Edelman, included a record number of ex-felons.
The newly-minted class of FDNY probationary firefighters includes an unprecedented nine rookie Bravest with felony convictions, including one who did jail time for gun possession, insiders told The Post.
The nine ex-felons, all minorities, were among 295 probies who graduated from the Fire Academy on Nov. 2, as critics charge the FDNY has loosened hiring standards to diversify its ranks.
One of the nine, a black 32-year-old who joined the city as an EMT in 2012, served more than a year in the Nassau County Correctional Center after two 2005 convictions for carrying loaded guns.
At age 20, he was busted twice in Long Island — once after a cop found a .38-caliber revolver in a car he was riding in, and again with a 9mm pistol in his car’s seat-back pocket. He pled guilty to two counts of criminal weapon possession, one a felony.
