BURNED BY THE FDNY
Aspiring firefighter denied over 2 dismissed arrests Claims discrimination after commish’s racist son rehired
A BLACK MAN with dreams of becoming a firefighter is lashing out at the FDNY, claiming the department unfairly tossed his application over two minor incidents — while giving the son of a former fire commissioner a second chance despite his history of racist slurs.
“It’s really disheartening,” said Andre Laurant, who has filed a federal racial discrimination lawsuit against the FDNY.
“Look at what they’re putting me through, but in other cases they just sweep everything under the rug.”
Laurant, 44, was referring to FDNY probationary Firefighter Joseph Cassano, the son of former Fire Commissioner Salvatore Cassano, who graduated from the FDNY Academy last month — about four years after he resigned in disgrace amid a furor over his racist and anti-Semitic tweets.
After the scandal died down, Cassano got rehired by the FDNY as an EMT, and then became a firefighter.
“I think it’s very unfair what’s happening to any candidate of color,” said Laurant. “It comes down to the powers that be who are running the show. They turn the cheek on something that is blatant and in your face, but the people who really want the job aren’t getting a fair shake.”
Laurant, of Staten Island, passed the written exam to become a firefighter twice, most recently in 2013, but his chances of joining the department stalled because he failed to indicate two minor arrests that occurred more than two decades ago.
In one case, Laurant was arrested after a friend set off some fireworks inside a store in April 1995. In August of that year, he was accused of taking a friend’s bicycle, which he quickly returned.
Both cases were ultimately dismissed and sealed with no record, Laurent said.
“These were both over 23 years ago, and sealed,” Laurent said. “Why is this such a big thing?”
The lawsuit states that even though Laurant forgot to mention the arrests — a mistake he rectified at a later date — the department accused him of “making false statements.” They also said he wasn’t qualified due to his arrest history.
The suit alleges the FDNY used the error to stop Laurant’s application from going forward — a tactic often used to wash out candidates of color whom it doesn’t want.
The FDNY didn’t use the same scrutiny when officials rehired Joseph Cassano, the lawsuit states.
Among his series of racist and sexist tweets, Cassano said he liked Jews as much as Hitler and that Martin Luther King could “kick rocks.” He also accused his patients of using ambulances instead of cabs because Medicare pays for them.
Because he quit before he got fired, Cassano was able to rejoin the EMS after the scandal died down.
The suit claims Mayor de Blasio had no problem giving Cassano a second chance.
“Nobody’s perfect. If the ground rule was one mistake and you can no longer participate in public life, there would be essentially no one left in public life,” de Blasio said at the time Cassano was hired as an EMT, according to the suit. “The mayor of the City of New York endorsed (Cassano’s rehiring),” said Laurent’s attorney Eric Sanders.
“The FDNY touts at every graduation that they have a lot more minorities than they used to, but the overwhelming
majority of candidates of color are screened out of the entire process over little things that they forgive white candidates like Cassano for,” Sanders said.
A spokesman for the city’s Law Department said, “The claims and allegations are not supported by the facts the plaintiff has presented. We’ll respond accordingly.”
Laurant got a chance to take the fire entrance exam a second time thanks to a groundbreaking discrimination lawsuit filed by the Vulcan Society, the association of black FDNY firefighters, which charged blacks and Latinos were subjected to disparate treatment in the almost all-male and predominantly white department.
As part of the $98 million settlement reached with the city in 2015, the FDNY agreed to give a second chance to several hundred black and Latino applicants who took the test and passed years ago but never got on the job.
The department waived its age limit — 29 years old — for the second-chance candidates, but all of them, like Laurant, had to go through the entire hiring process again, including the written and physical exams.