Facebook claims another firefighter's job. Bourne Fire Department's Richard Doherty fired over posting.
The Bourne Fire Department in Massachusetts is one of the smaller departments to have its own special category on STATter911.com (click here and scroll down for our previous stories). That’s because the department and the city seem to stay in the news. The allegations in this latest news making incident are not new. We first brought them to you in October. What is new is that Firefighter Richard Doherty is out of a job because of things he wrote on Facebook. Here are excerpts from an article on NECN.com:
Gil Taylor, President IAFF Local 1717: “The union believes at this point that Mr. Doherty has been unfairly targeted and that the termination is improper.”
That support comes with a candid acknowledgment about the 17-year department veteran also known for his charitable works.
“He’s recently run a fundraiser to obtain funds to be able to build a ramp for a local handicapped child to gain access to the beach. but he is very vocal. if he doesn’t think something is right, you can’t shut him up. ”
In it (the Facebook postings), he allegedly railed against the police officer over some incident, angrily carried on about being forced to work on the Fourth of July holiday and made a homosexual slur.
Taylor: “He was exercising his First Amendment right to state that he thought he was being treated poorly by these individuals or didn’t like the way they were doing things.”
But town Administrator Thomas Guerino issued a statement Wednesday saying in part — by publicly disparaging and ridiculing the lieutenant and then sergeant (and now police chief), Firefigher Doherty imperiled the link that must bind fire and police personnel. This conduct undermines the ability to serve the public and undercuts public confidence in the town’s ability to provide these services.
