Fire Law Blog Fire Service and Public Safety Legal Issues Blog by Curt Varone
A South Carolina firefighter has been terminated over several social media posts that were found to be racist. Georgetown County firefighter Bob Kosto was fired last week one day after county officials were informed of the posts.
The posts were reported last Wednesday following an argument Kosto got into on Facebook over facemasks.
The Post and Courier quoted County PIO Jackie Broach as saying last Thursday:
- After review, the decision to sever our relationship with Mr. Kosto was made today.
- We don’t tolerate racism on any level. In the last almost 24 hours, we’ve received numerous emails from the media as well as the community with concerns.
- If we can’t trust employees, that’s a problem for us. Our emergency responders, especially, need to have the trust of the community.
- You certainly have First Amendment rights, but you are subject to the consequences of he things you say.
- We have a lot of employees and we just don’t have time to monitor their social media. Additionally, many of them, like my account, are locked down.
- Hopefully, we wouldn’t be able to see a lot of it.
- But certainly if anyone tips us off to something, then we will certainly review it and if that behavior is inappropriate, we will act accordingly.
Here are some of the offensive posts provided by the county:
