The Buffalo Fire Department has shown “great preference” for hiring politically connected recruits while drumming out “worthy candidates” among minorities, women and the less-connected for decades, said a former deputy fire commissioner in an affidavit included a recently filed lawsuit.
Shannon Street, the former deputy commissioner, said he tried to address the department’s hiring practices but was undercut by a training chief and the department’s commissioner. Street said he brought “several particularly egregious specific instances of racial and gender prejudice and political favoritism” straight to Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown.
Shortly after that meeting, Street was demoted to captain in January 2020 and “promptly retired,” according to his affidavit.
“The BFD is a department I deeply love,” Street wrote in his two-page affidavit. “It was disheartening for me to be unable to stop the racism and gender discrimination and political favoritism at the BFD Academy despite the high rank I myself attained.”
Street’s two-page affidavit was included in an employment discrimination lawsuit against the city, Brown and Fire Commissioner William Renaldo among other department officials filed Thursday in State Supreme Court.
The three plaintiffs – Kevin Green, Nick Ciechalski and Julian Perez – allege department officials wrongfully drummed them out of the Buffalo Fire Academy in 2020 for being Black, over the age of 40 and Polish, and Hispanic, respectively. They also accused department officials of perpetuating “an environment that resulted in discrimination.”
The city had not been served in the suit as of Saturday, according to city spokesperson Michael DeGeorge, who declined to comment.
Fire academy officials used a variety of methods to discriminate against applicants, according to the suit:
- Green said a training chief and other officials drummed him out of the academy by altering the curriculum,…
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