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It’s only a 21-second video with no context of what occurred before or after, but it’s enough to have a Long Island fire company chief relieved of “all of his duties” pending further investigation. When you view it (above), you will immediately see why.

The video shows a very upset child being loaded into an ambulance with a person news reports have identified as North Babylon Fire Chief Peter Alt yelling at the 10-year-old girl to, “Shut the fuck up.” The family says EMS was called because the girl was apparently in some sort of crisis and couldn’t calm down.

The North Babylon Volunteer Fire Company in Suffolk County issued a statement that says, “it does not condone this behavior and deems it unacceptable.”  The video, showed up on Monday shortly after an EMS call in West Babylon. The video and the fire department are now making news and being further amplified by a well known social media influencer.

Cecilia Down, News 12 Long Island:

The girl’s grandmother says the family called for help because her granddaughter was having a hard time and wasn’t able to calm down.

The grandmother, who doesn’t want her name used, was not home at the time.

After watching the video Tuesday, the girl’s grandmother said she was shaking.
“How dare he?” she said.

Here’s the full statement from the North Babylon Volunteer Fire Company:

As you can imagine, Chief Alt and the department are taking a beating on social media. Likely adding to their problems will be social media influencer @TizzyEnt posting the video this (Tuesday) afternoon, contributing his own commentary and urging people to contact the fire department. TizzyEnt is known for calling out and identifying people captured on video doing extremely insensitive, dangerous, and racist things.

Many of the comments are also critical of the police officers and others standing around the ambulance with the fire chief and apparently not being seen intervening on behalf of the child.

The statement from the department is not going to be enough to address the outrage the video has and will continue to inspire. While nothing will make this go away, the fire department would be smart to do more than just issue a statement. A department leader needs to be out front addressing this crisis. The executive board needs to make sure this investigation is very promptly handled with the results made public immediately. Anything less will just prolong the agony for everyone.

I can’t imagine any justification for this. Even if someone is stupid enough to think they have one, it’s probably best to keep it to youself. It’s unlikely anyone will listen to you.