FDNY is discriminatory, court says, but it hasn't yet been proven that it's intentional.

The Fire Department of New York has a discrimination problem: In a city where, in 2002, 25 percent of the population was black and 27 percent was Hispanic, the fire department was 2.6 percent black and 3.7 percent Hispanic. Other city agencies don't have this problem, and neither do fire departments in other major cities.

As Steven Thrasher extensively documented for the Voice in 2010, the overwhelming and disproportionate whiteness of the FDNY has been the subject of a roiling legal struggle for nearly half a century. The current lawsuit, brought by the Justice Department over an Equal Employment complaint by the Vulcan Society, a group of black firefighters, has been ricocheting around the federal court system since 2007.

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About a month ago, the New York Post ran a frontpage story on Timothy Dluhos, a 12-year EMS lieutenant in Bed-Stuy with a really terrible social media presence. This guy was tweeting things like "I'm going to give up racial insults for Lent. Jesus that didn't [last] too long. F--ken chinks can't drive" and "That's how King Jew sees it. Ban all guns & shootings will go down in NYC. But it's the criminals w/the guns." He ran under the moniker of "Bad Lieutenant" (appropriate) and he had Hitler holding a baby dinosaur as his profile picture (...appropriate?).

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Last week, fellow Voice scribe Nick Greene gave us the lowdown on social media informalities for Facebook. Can you post pictures of your vacation? No, please don't. How about your political views? Stop, nobody cares. And what about a job promotion? Ugh. You get the picture.

These standards of Internet presence are raised for governmental officials (see: Anthony Weiner). Municipal figures are held to a much higher regard in our social community; therefore, their opinions are taken more seriously in the public eye. And you represent our collective body politic, so you better act like it online.

Last month, the EMT son of FDNY Commissioner Sal Cassano was caught by the New York Post tweetin' up a racist storm. He jeered at minority groups from his computer/phone keyboard, not keeping in mind that, hey, his dad is the head of the FDNY. Also, it was later found that other EMTs were posting pictures of (and then berating) their patients online.

Enter the FDNY's social media guidelines announced this weekend, in which the department advises its workers to have some decency (read: no racism allowed) online.

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We knew the Wafels and Dinges truck was too good to be true!

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As Myles wrote on Monday, it's high time to throw away your old, dead Christmas tree. But while doing so, please dispose of it properly! According to the blog Strollerderby, a Christmas tree was seen in flames, in the East Village, the other night. It managed to set an entire minivan on fire. (EV Grieve says this happened on 7th Street between A and 1st, and has photos -- it appears that the car's windows were blown out from the fire.)

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We're hearing reports that there's a school bus or another vehicle on fire at 35th Street and 7th Avenue, near Macy's. The Corcoran Group has Tweeted a photo, saying, "A truck is on fire outside Macys on 7th Avenue, sounds of explosions nearby."

The FDNY tells us there is smoke in the area at 7th and 42nd Street, but they don't have confirmation on it being a school bus. "We have companies on the scene and it is developing," we were told. The call came in at 8:33 this morning.

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This Saturday, the NYPD and FDNY are occupying (ha!) Madison Square Garden for a good cause. The NYPD Fighting Finest will fight the FDNY Bravest in the Battle of the Badges, a boxing match for charity. The boxing match is happening just a week after Veterans Day and benefits former soldiers. The proceeds will go to Long Island's Lt. James Byler, who lost both of his legs fighting in Afghanistan.

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Former federal prosecutor Mark Cohen has been chosen as the federal court monitor who will be chosen to supervise the FDNY, the Daily News is reporting.

As we've been reporting over the past year, the city continues to be in hot water with the federal government for not enforcing Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in regards to the fire department. The FDNY is about 95 percent white, and U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis ruled that it's a "bastion of white privilege." He recently ordered that a court appointed monitor would need to oversee the fire department's hiring, promotions, and human resources, perhaps for as long as a decade.

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Last night at Zuccotti Park, an EMT broke his leg responding to a fight and had to be taken away to in an ambulance. This was one of four fights that required security's attention at the park between 10:30 p.m. and 12:30 a.m. The offender in the fight that injured the EMT was also taken away in an ambulance.

When the Voice arrived on the scene around 10:30 we were greeted with a commotion on the eastern end of the park near the red structure. A man with facial tattoos and a dog had grabbed an American flag and was trying to burn it.

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The fire department and police department paid Occupy Wall Street a visit this morning and took their power generators. The FDNY says they were looking for anything that posed a fire hazard: generators, fuel, gas tanks, etc. According to reports, the materials were removed peaceably.

This isn't a complete surprise: CBS reported on Monday that the FDNY was on the lookout for potential fire hazards in the park.

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