Firefighters: NAACP must apologize

BALTIMORE (Map, News) - Firefighters at the East Baltimore station where a noose was found demanded Monday that the NAACP apologize for labeling them racist.

Discovery of the noose had drawn sharp criticism from Marvin “Doc” Cheatham, the Baltimore NAACP president, before a black firefighter from the station admitted that he had placed the noose there.

“The firefighters that work on his shift want Doc Cheatham to be man enough to stand up and apologize for his outrageous statements,” said Bob Sledgeski, a city firefighter union official. “They’re furious they were accused of being racists when it was not true.”

Sledgeski said the discovery of the noose — and the accusations by Cheatham and others that it was a sign of racism in the fire department — caused distress for the firefighters at Herman Williams Jr. firehouse on 25th Street.

The union, Sledgeski said, is considering filing a defamation lawsuit against the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Vulcan Blazers, a black firefighters group that said the noose symbolized racism in the department.

Henry Burris, president of the Vulcan Blazers, condemned the incident but said no apology was necessary.

“I do not condone it,” he said. “However, I do not apologize for the information I got concerning the noose, and, as I said when I found out about the noose, it was just a symptom of racism in the fire department.”

Donald Maynard, a firefighter-paramedic apprentice, admitted last week he had placed the noose and a drawing depicting a lynching, fire officials said Saturday evening.

Maynard had told fire officials he and a paramedic found the noose and drawing on Nov. 21, along with a note.

The note, written in a childlike scrawl and left next to rope tied in a knot, was found in the bunk room.

“We cant [sic] hang the cheaters, but we can hang the failures. NO EMT-I, NO JOB,” it read.

The note apparently referred to the requirement that all city firefighters must pass advanced life-saving training as a condition of employment. (EMT-I refers to emergency medical technician, intermediate.)

Maynard has since been suspended by the department for not completing his EMT-I certification.

Cheatham could not be reached for comment Monday. In an interview Saturday, he had called for the person who placed the noose to be punished.

“As the NAACP stated when first notified of this incident, whoever perpetrated this awful act must be punished regardless of race, age, religion,” he said.

sjanis@baltimoreexaminer.com

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