Firefighter who hung figurine suspended
Black fetus prop found with ribbon around neck
The Milwaukee firefighter who hung a brown figurine with a ribbon tied around its neck in a fire station was issued a 20-day unpaid suspension, Fire Chief Mark Rohlfing said Tuesday — a sanction that some members of the city’s Common Council felt was too light.
Other members of the department were also disciplined.
The hanging of the fetus-shaped figurine by the white male firefighter was “offensive, inappropriate and should not have happened in a Milwaukee fire station,” Rohlfing told a Common Council committee, though he added the department’s investigation didn’t reveal “a deliberate or intentional racist or sexist intent on the part of the firefighter who brought the figurine in.”
He called it a “gross lack of judgment.”
The figurine was reported by a young female African American firefighter.
Ald. Milele Coggs countered that intent is not always the most important consideration. Sometimes, she said, it’s about the impact or about what someone knew or should have known.
“The history of people of African descent being hung and lynched in this country is long and it’s deep-rooted . ... It is not a secret what hanging African Americans from ropes, nooses or anything of that nature, and the impacts that the visualization of anything that looks similar to that could have on particularly people of African descent but people in general,” she said.
Coggs said she found it “unbelievable” that the firefighter could have been ignorant to that context.
She asked if Rohlfing could see how it would be hard for some to accept that the firefighter’s action was not racially or gender-motivated.
“Yes, I certainly do,” Rohlfing said. He said the department has taken steps to learn and make necessary changes.
The firefighter found the figurine with the pink ribbon tied around its neck in the street when returning from a medical call, Rohlfing said. The investigation determined it was an anti-abortion prop handed out at rallies.
He said the firefighter looked at it, showed it to a few others and took it back to the station. During lunch at the station, he showed it to others, Rohlfing said, and asked what it was.
“He said that he tied the ribbons ... together and hung it, hoping somebody would say, ‘Oh, I know what that is,’ ” Rohlfing said.
He faced questions from members of the Common Council skeptical about the plausibility of the story.
In February, a young female African American firefighter reported the figurine, which Rohlfing said for 31⁄2 to 4 days was either on a table or on a hook attached to a whiteboard in the kitchen of Fire Station 2 downtown.
The firefighter who reported the figurine was transferred to another position outside the fire station at her request, Rohlfing said.
Ald. Chantia Lewis asked if anyone was in communication with the female firefighter to figure out why she felt uncomfortable at the fire station and whether she felt it was a racist or sexist incident.
Rohlfing said there was constant contact with her. In the beginning, he said, she did not feel she had been targeted or that it was racist or sexist.
“As we started reading charges and other folks in the engine house started getting penalties, she felt kind of nervous” and uncomfortable coming to the station, he said.
He said she denied she was concerned about retribution.
Ald. Russell Stamper II pushed Rohlfing on how the white firefighter’s actions did not require immediate termination.
Rohlfing said some people didn’t immediately know what the figurine was from a distance.
“I’m not trying to make any excuses — some people do look at it and they say, ‘What is that?’ It’s not clearly from a distance a noose around a Black baby’s neck,” he said. “It’s a brown figurine that’s hanging from a ribbon, so it does take a little closer look to think, what is that?”
Stamper responded it depends on the eye of the beholder.
Anthony Lewis, president of the Milwaukee Brotherhood of Firefighters, said the message of the figurine was unmistakable.
He said he feels that the predominantly white male firefighters are uncomfortable with people of color and women being part of the fire service.
“A lot of it isn’t blatant but it’s coded stuff they do,” said Lewis, who described the Brotherhood as a minority union that seeks to make the department more diverse.
The department, Rohlfing said, is working with a trainer and the Milwaukee Brotherhood of Firefighters to put together an educational video and training sessions that will highlight standards around discrimination, harassment and racism.
Rohlfing said the investigation took longer than normal because of the Molson Coors shooting in late February, the coronavirus pandemic and the unrest that followed the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody in May.
The department’s internal investigation file was turned over to the Milwaukee Fire and Police Commission on Monday and is expected to be discussed at the Complaints and Discipline Committee on Sept. 22, FPC Executive Director Griselda Aldrete said.