Knock-knock joke and past haunt assistant chief. Ossining, NY gives reprimand for email of Obama cartoon seen as racially offensive.
Assistant Chief Thomas Reddy from The Journal News
The Journal News, covering New York’s Lower Hudson Valley is running an editorial saying the punishment handed out to Village of Ossining Assistant Fire Chief Thomas Reddy isn’t sufficient. With the title Bigotry in Ossining, the opinion piece says Reddy “deserved a swift boot to the curb for using the government’s e-mail system to circulate a ‘knock-knock’ joke that ends with a caricature of Obama and the words “Eyes Yo New President.”
The paper points out a previous racial incident involving Reddy when he was on the Board of Education and says the recent reprimand isn’t enough.
Click here to read the entire editorial.
Below is the news report about Chief Reddy from Journal News reporters Sean Gorman and Jonathan Bandler:
A racially offensive cartoon slideshow about Barack Obama was emailed last month by an assistant fire chief in the Village of Ossining who once had to step down as president of the Board of Education for making a racial slur.
Thomas Reddy, who is also a retired village police detective, was reprimanded but not disciplined by village officials for violating an anti-harassment policy when he forwarded the email using his ‘Yahoo’ address identifying him as a fire chief.
The slideshow features a “knock-knock” joke that ends with a door opening to reveal a caricature of Obama and the words “Eyes Yo New Prezident.” The e-mail went to at least 20 people, including Fred Steneck, chief of the volunteer fire department.
“The use of an email address reflecting your affiliation with the Village Fire Department for the purpose of disseminating offensive material , which is in violation of established policy, is unacceptable and will not be tolerated,” Village Manager Linda Cooper wrote to Reddy in an Oct. 22 letter obtained by The Journal News. She called the cartoon “offensive, insulting and racial material.”
Reddy said today he didn’t think the joke was racially offensive and that was not his intention – he simply sent it along as a “political spoof.”
The letter was given to Reddy that day at a meeting with Cooper, Chief Steneck and the village lawyer and personnel director. He was also told that the village would not tolerate further incidents in which Reddy supposedly shouted “political perspectives” from his village fire vehicle.
In an email to village officials about the meeting, Cooper said Reddy “apologized for his behavior and vowed it would not occur again.”
Reddy retired last year from the Ossining Police Department after arguably his biggest case: the investigation into the Mother’s Day 2006 slaying of Patricia Mery, a schoolteacher and daughter of a former village police chief. Mery’s daughter, Anne Trovato, was convicted of murder in the killing.
Reddy served six years on the Ossining Board of Education. He was board president for several months but had to step down in March 1996 after acknowledging that he had used the ‘n-word’ to refer to a black colleague in the police department. He remained on the board but did not run for a third term the following year.
