A veteran firefighter with 28 years of service refused to go with his crew to aid the injured when Rep Giffords was shot in Arizona. He says that the reason why was due to “political bantering”, as most of his fellow firefighters did not share his own political views.
But what were these political views which caused such division?
The firefighter in question, Mark Ekstrum, started his career as a registered Democrat. He switched his affiliation to Independent 11 years before the shooting occurred, and insists that he voted for Rep. Giffords in the last election.
Make of that what you will, but it doesn’t look like he was a Conservative.
Mark Estrum’s politics are immaterial. He didn’t do his apolitical job when called upon. He should be canned for dereliction.
Wisconsin’s derelict teachers should be next.
d(^_^)b
http://libertyatstake.blogspot.com
“Because the Only Good Progressive is a Failed Progressive”
The guy sounds weird. It’s appropriate that he retire.
Like the shooter in Tucson, this guy sounds like an individual hearing voices in his head that had nothing to do with politics. Making a political issue out of this is a mistake.
Nothing much to add, except that I read the whole article and cannot make heads or tails of any of it. He was a conservative at odds with his crew, so he did not respond to this Democratic event featuring…. the candidate he voted for? He was a liberal while his crew was conservative, and that’s why he did not respond to this…. Democratic event, while they did??
WTF???
Apparently, a crisis arose, and this fireman says he could not respond for either political reasons or just because he’s not getting along with his crew for whatever reasons….
Dude, we don’t really need to know. You’re done. Here’s a dictionary. Look up the word “professional”, ya might learn something.
Given that the firefighters were not dispatched until 90 minutes after the shooting, it is possible that Ekstrum and his colleagues got in verbal fight over whether the Tea Party or conservatives in general were responsible for the shooting. It is not clear which side that Ekstrum was on.
If Ekstrum was pro-Tea Party and his team was mostly anti-Tea Party, he might have been the target of accusations that people like him has caused the shooting. Or it could have been the other way around. Given the stories emphasis on his politics and the dynamics of the media coverage, it would seem most likely to be the former.
However, even so, I agree that there isn’t any excuse short of violence that is acceptable for emergency response personnel. Unless he really thought that the disagreement was so major it would cause a team dysfunction that would endanger lives, then he should have sucked it up and gone.
Still, it would be interesting to hear the entire story.
His political affiliation is not mentioned, which means “Democrat”.
Because you know that they asked. And if he’d answered “Republican” it would be been the first word in the headline.